It’s unusual to encounter drawings with the intensity of those by Berga. In 2003-04 she worked on a single drawing for twelve months – focussed on the more than lifesize image of musican/artist/performer Geoff Corbett. The intensity was such that she has hesitated to commit to a project of similar magnitude since. Berga’s previous long and magnificnet drawings include the Portraits of Emma Tom (2000)... .They capture the attitudes of this variable writer whose column in the Weekend Australian offended as many as it entertained... Berga's impression of Tom as a strong personality, committed to self-expression, or just to self, (?) dominates over other details. Berga won the Trustees' Prize at the 2000 Kedumba Drawing Awards with this portrait, shown alongside Portraits Two and Three. (The Kedumba Drawing Award is a national award: invitation-only, highly-coveted and highly competitive.)
