AUSTRALIA
The Courier
By Melissa Cunningham June 26, 2015
A HARROWING portrait of clergy sexual abuse survivor David Ridsdale has been entered in the prestigious Archibald Prize.
Ballarat artist Domenico Milivoj Micich was compelled to use the nephew of one of Australia’s most notorious pedophiles, Gerald Ridsdale, as the subject of his artwork in the wake of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
Mr Micich, who was sexually abused himself during his childhood in Italy, said his portrait, Magnum Silencium: David Ridsdale and the bribe, was particularly controversial due to Mr Ridsdale’s connection to his uncle and Cardinal George Pell.
It is also encompassed a deeper message.
“It explores the struggle for justice,transparency and finally healing,” Mr Micich said.
Testifying at the Royal Commission earlier this year, Mr Ridsdale revealed he had told Cardinal Pell in a 1993 phone call, he had been repeatedly raped by his uncle.
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