When artist Alison Alder first pitched her work for the National Portrait Gallery's upcoming exhibition, she thought it would be too large.
The work in question, Some women you may not know, was created for Portrait23: Identity and takes up the entirety of the gallery's forecourt wall. With 116 screen-printed posters of 15 different women, each of who have inspired Alder in one way or another.
"There are many women that I could have chosen, and it wasn't chosen in a rank of importance or anything. I just worked on one by one and then kept on growing," Adler said.
"For example, I had been working a while ago on looking at printed ephemera of issues relating to women, and I found these brochures from 1929 and the 1930s. And one of the women that I came across in that project was this woman called Muriel Heagney... who was working on equal rights, equal pay issues for women, way back in the 30s, and 40s, and 50s.
"And so because I was looking at her, and I came across Jessie Street, she was on one of the same committees. And then I came across Pearl Gibbs, who was an amazing First Nations activist who was part of that famous photograph from 1938 of the Day of Mourning.
"So it's just one thing led to another, and it just built itself."
Also included in the work is the artist's mother Doris Alder, NSW politician Rose Jackson, poet Kate Jennings, Canberra artist Mandy Martin, and environmentalist Judith Wright.
And since Wednesday is International Women's Day, it seems appropriate that Adler's work is the preview piece for Portrait23: Identity.
"I find it astonishing when I think how society progresses and we've come a long way, but it is that people keep on plugging away at these key issues. And I find that quite inspiring," Adler said.
The major contemporary art exhibition, which opens on Friday, aims to reflect on and redefine portraiture in 21st-century Australia.
It features new work from multi-award-winning contemporary Australian artists and collectives working across every state and territory. Responding to the broad concept of identity, each artist has been invited to realise a new approach to portraiture across a range of mediums.
"Each of the artists selected is well-known and influential in their own right, but many would not consider themselves to be portraitists," National Portrait Gallery director of collection and exhibitions Sandra Bruce said.
"A portrait is generally understood to be a literal visual likeness of a person, perhaps going so far as to reference their interests and endeavours. With Portrait23, through directly engaging with some of Australia's most exciting contemporary artists, we are bringing new, diverse concepts and perspectives around the genre, and its inherent universal theme of identity, to the table."
For Adler, Portrait23 is also a chance for her to showcase screen-printed posters in a national institution.
Not only is it the artist's medium of choice, but she believes that in terms of artistic status, she believes that it can sometimes be given low artistic status.
"And yet, that lowly status increases, for me, its potency and its appeal, because they can be quite fast to make," Adler said.
"They've got low-cost material, but also, they're beautiful. The way the ink sits on the paper is beautifully dense and rich and colourful.
"In my early life, it was posters that informed me about what was happening outside of the mainstream - about protest, action, events and issues. I love the ephemeral nature of posters - often it is visual art that was made to be temporary that provides a far stronger picture of what was happening at a particular time than something created for posterity."
- Portrait23: Identity is at the National Portrait Gallery from March 10 to June 18.
