Accolade for Phegan’s Bay artist

Phegans Bay artist Leonardo Uribe, who uses hair in his artworks, has placed second in the Dobell Drawing Prize.

Australia’s leading prize for drawing, the biennial Dobell Drawing Prize highlights the enduring relevance and changing role of drawing in contemporary art practice.

This year’s prize showcases the work of 56 finalists, selected from 965 nationwide entries with the winners selected by the judging panel led by artist Vernon Ah Kee.

Uribe’s piece, Dad’s Last Portrait, uses the hair of his father to recreate his death certificate.

Uribe’s father died in Colombia during the pandemic lockdowns.

Living in Chittaway Bay at the time, he was unable to travel to Colombia to say goodbye which plunged him into depression.

“It’s an incredible honour to receive this recognition from the judges of the Dobell Drawing Prize,” he said.

“I have long admired Vernon Ah Kee’s work which makes this even more special.

“It has been humbling to see other people connect with the artwork and share their stories of loss with me.”

In 2023, Uribe’s piece Immigration Form 80 was highly commended by the art prize.

The artwork used Uribe’s hair and recreated one of the numerous documents required during the arduous process of becoming an Australian citizen.

Uribe uses hair as a marker of identity but it also has deep emotional ties.

He grew up in Colombia, where his mother ran a hair salon and his older sister worked in the salon, standing on a stool to cut hair as a child.

“She was 10 years old with regular clients,” Uribe said.

He “draws” with hair by cutting the material into fine pieces.

He then painstakingly glues the hair to paper, a process that takes many hours; individual artworks take more than 20 hours to complete.

Uribe recently created a side business making portraits of pets using their fur.

Separated from his beloved cat Cookie during an art residency in Spain, he used some of her fur to create a portrait to remember her by.

Ever since, friends and family members have been asking him to make portraits of their pets which led him to start Hairloom Pet Portraits.