The Perfect Artist by Matthew Gingold is a video portrait project that explores creativity: the people who create and what it means to be creative.

Artists, arts workers and administrators are being invited from around Australia to have their portraits recorded. Currently shoots have been conducted in Melbourne and Perth, with further shoots coming soon in Sydney and the Northern Territory.

These portraits form a unique and colourful database of over 100 individual creative people ‘performing themselves’. The portrait process is designed to enable a live performance involving a series of improvised vignettes. There is no rehearsal, script or traditional direction. You choose what to wear, what to bring and what to say.

Reflecting the live performance of the participants, the final installation consists of a computer ‘performing live’ in the exhibition space – generatively sorting, selecting and composing the video clips in real-time.

The project will be exhibited as part of Present Tense, at the National Portrait Gallery from May to August 2010.

The Perfect Artist has been made possible with support from the following perfect organisations: Arts Victoria, Aphids, PVI Collective, Performance Space, PACT, Head Quarters, Bill & George, Tiny Stadiums and the National Portrait Gallery.