Paul
Adam Southgate
- Sitter: Paul Spiro
- Medium: Oil on paper
- Dimensions: 63cm x 87cm
- Representation: This artist represents themselves
About the artwork
Paul Spiro is a respected figure in Brisbane’s business, legal and arts community. As head of Gadens in Brisbane for two decades, he built a substantial in-house art collection, and pioneered the firm’s support for the arts. Chair of the Brisbane Economic Development Association and former Chair of Brisbane Festival, he was recently awarded the 2026 QAGOMA Medal, a prestigious honorary award recognising transformative contributions to the gallery and Queensland’s cultural landscape.
He is pictured suited and grinning, perched on his GasGas dirt bike in the doorway of the former Spiro Grace Art Rooms, which he co-founded.
Upon meeting Spiro, artist Adam Southgate was expecting to meet a formal businessman, but instead encountered someone warm, humorous and disarmingly relaxed. Southgate captured Spiro mid-laugh, in a deliberately playful style. The result is a portrait that sits at the intersection of Spoiro’s public life and private passions and invites us to hold both at once.
About the artist
Adam Southgate is a Brisbane-based early career painter working in oils, exploring the intersection of film and painting. Graduating with First Class Honours from Queensland College of Art in 2021, his practice is driven by an obsession with colour, materiality and likeness. A three-time Brisbane Portrait Prize finalist, he has exhibited across Brisbane.
