Jiawei Shen The lady from Shanghai (Jenny Sages)

Jenny Sages has been asked many times by fellow artists whether they could paint her portrait but she has always said no. Finally when Jiawei Shen asked she relented. ‘Jiawei is a friend and [like Sages] he was born in Shanghai so there were several circumstances that made me want to do it,’ she says.

Shen met Sages many years ago when they were both finalists in the Archibald Prize. ‘Even before that, I had seen and enjoyed her work,’ he says. ‘And I knew from the CV at her solo exhibition that she was born in the same Chinese city as me, into a Russian-Jewish family. The year I was born, 1948, she left. An American movie entitled The lady from Shanghai was also screening. I will never forget when she met me the first time, she asked me in perfect Shanghainese, “have you eaten dinner?” which is the same as “how are you?” in Australian.’

Though Sages, who is also represented in the final of this year’s Archibald Prize, admits she finds the whole notion of having her portrait painted a little confronting, she says that Shen’s portrait is ‘exactly like me – every liver spot, every blue vein! I don’t know what I feel, it’s given me a whole new look out on portraits.’

Shen is a largely self-taught artist, learning his art during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 70s. He did postgraduate studies at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, becoming widely recognised in his homeland as a history painter. He won the Chinese National Art Prize five times during the 1980s. Since moving to Sydney in 1989, he has worked full-time as a painter. He won the Mary MacKillop Art Award in 1995 and has been a finalist in the Archibald Prize on seven previous occasions and was runner-up in 1997.