DALE RHODES
B.Sc. dalerhodespaintings.com rhodes.dale@gmail.com insta dalerhodespaintings
Dale is a finalist of the Archibald Prize 2026. He is also a finalist of the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize, The Archibald Salon Des Refuses, the Black Swan (Lester Portrait Prize) and the Northern Rivers Portrait Prize.
Dale is a self-taught painter of portraits, still life and landscape. He teaches painting at the Byron School of Art and privately. He lives, paints and teaches in Mullumbimby NSW.
Prizes
2026 Finalist, Archibald Prize
2026 Pre-selection, Royal Society of Portrait Painters London
2018 Top fifty, Portrait Society of America International Competition
2018 Semi-finalist Doug Moran National Portrait Prize
2017 Finalist, Doug Moran National Portrait Prize
2017 Salon Des Refuses, Archibald Prize
2015 Finalist, Lester (Black Swan) Portrait Prize Art Gallery of Western Australia
2015 Finalist, Northern Rivers Portrait Prize
2014 Finalist, Border Art Prize Tweed Regional Gallery
Exhibitions
2025 Small Stories Exhibition of still life paintings at Anthea Polson Art Gallery
2023 Group Show BSA 10 years Tweed Regional Gallery
2022 Outback - exhibition of landscape paintings at A K Bellinger Gallery
2020 Jump - exhibition of figure paintings at Saint Cloche Gallery
2018 Earth and Sea - exhibition of landscape paintings at A K Bellinger Gallery
2018 Group show M/Arts Murwillumbah
2017 Gaze - exhibition of still life paintings at Saint Cloche Gallery
2016 Exhibition of portrait and figure paintings at Byron School of Art
2015 Still - exhibition of still life paintings at Tweed Regional Gallery
2014 Exhibition of still life paintings at Butcher’s Hook Gallery Paddington
Abbreviated catalogue essay by Anna Johnson
The work of Dale Rhodes shares the meticulous grace of earlier classical traditions. The faces he paints are built on finely drawn bone, sinew and flesh. The skin of his oranges have heft and patina. His trees rustle.
After decades of application it seems that he can paint and draw anything. His pictures eclipse their own powers of description, inviting the eye to search for shared qualities across forms.
His portraits are almost visceral in their quiet magnetism. His depictions of crumpled paper and fruit compel the eye into fathomless depth. His landscapes enclose astonishing detail and emotional charge within apparently minimal compositions.
This painter does not rush and he does not abbreviate. The pleasure he takes in the evolution of a painting is palpable in every stage.
“The more time embroidered into the paint the better. When I put a piece of paint down I’m totally committed to that stroke but I might well come back and change it completely.”
Surely the point of formal skill is not a goal but a gate that must be kicked open. What is felt is the source of what is real.
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