WIL OF GOD - WIL ANDERSON

2010, Oil on Italian Linen, 152 x 152cm

Black Swan Portraiture Prize 2009
Finalist Archibald Prize Salon des Refusés 2009, Finalist

Wil Anderson is a busy little beaver, spreading himself across radio, stand-up, newspaper columns and of course, television. It’s an incredible volume of new material to produce each week - and yet he does so seemingly effortlessly with flair and of course, good humour. I wanted to do a tongue in cheek interpretation of him seeking new ideas; by using the clichéd light bulb symbol of a new idea, and doing something a bit different with it. That  Wil also did a show entitled “Wil of God” works in very neatly with him looking heaven-wards as if for inspiration. The title is deliberately ironic in that Wil seems to need little help in finding new material. Wil loved the idea and was gracious enough to sit for this (less than flattering) pose. Some of you will know Wil Anderson as “the bloke who sits in the middle on that ABC-TV show The Gruen Transfer”; or “the one who wasn’t Corinne or Hughesy on that show that used to get in trouble all the time” (The Glass House); or maybe even “the guy who hosts Spicks and Specks” (That’s actually Adam Hills, but he gets that a lot.) 

You might have also heard him on the radio as the “Wil” part of Wil and Lehmo on Triple M, a show that was described  by one critic as “being on the same time as Hamish and Andy.” For five years he also got up at a time most people consider “last night” to be “the one who knew lots about Buffy but nothing about maths” on the much-loved Triple J Breakfast Show with Adam Spencer. Wil also does a bit of writing, and for the last five years has written a regular column for the Herald-Sun/Sunday Telegraph Sunday Magazine. You can spot his column because it’s the one that isn’t about babies, recipes, recipes on how to cook a baby, or what stuff celebrities “can’t live without”. He has also written a book called Survival Of The Dumbest, which he can happily boast is “over 250 pages without pictures."