A crude taunt on a strange Fairy Meadow house enters the art world

Wollongong artist Nick Santoro was named a finalist in the 2024 Sulman Prize for his painting 'Property boundary quarrel (neighbours)', which recreates the crude taunt that was spray-painted in red and blue on the house next door to his dying grandfather.

The painting - which was Santoro's way of "processing a very odd neighbour" - has immortalised the muddled words "va mona tu mare maledetta porca che ha fatta" and become "another layer to a weird, weird story of having that person next door".

It's also placed the talented artist in the elite company of three-time Sulman finalists.

Located in a quiet suburban street, the graffiti-covered house - which has since been pulled down - hit the spotlight late last year when it appeared on the front page of the Illawarra Mercury under the headline Bad Neighbours.

The newspaper article was about a court case involving the owner of the house, John Albert Soster, a 60-year-old man who terrorised the couple next door, killing their trees, verbally abusing them and even peeping through the bedroom window while the wife exited the bathroom after a shower.

Soster was found guilty of destroying property, peeping or prying, and stalking and ordered to pay compensation, be of good behaviour and complete 100 hours of community service work.

For Santoro, the bizarre story was deeply personal, as his grandfather - who has since passed away - lived next door to Soster and two doors down from the victims in the court case.

While Santoro's family was not subject to the behaviour dealt with during Soster's hearing, they had their own issues with him and had to endure the daily sight of the massive spray-painted message that faced their house.

"That whole fiasco was quite close to home," Santoro said on Friday, May 31, a day after the 138 Archibald, Sulman and Wynne prize finalists were announced.

"But it was really mostly my auntie and my mother that had to deal with that person.

"That graffiti that was sprayed I believe was intended for my mum and my grandfather, who was dying at the time, because it was in Italian and that's the language that he spoke and that my mum and my auntie understand."

While Santoro's mother said the words were "so grammatically and syntactically incorrect that it doesn't really make a whole heap of sense" and one of the phrases could be used among friends, they regard it as "offensive" nonetheless.

He described the figures in the foreground as "nondescript and ambiguous, so they could be detectives, they could be secret agents, they could be lawyers or real estate people".

'Property boundary quarrel (neighbours)' will hang in the Art Gallery of NSW from June 8 until September 8, along with the works of 137 other finalists in the three prizes.

The 29-year-old artist, who has just completed a residency at Bundanon near Nowra, said it felt fantastic to have once again been selected for the highly prestigious prize, a success made all the sweeter thanks to the artist doing the judging.

"I'm a really big fan of the artwork of the guest judge Tom Polo," Santoro said.

"It's a thrill to be in it but especially because it seems Tom liked the the artwork enough to put it in the prize in the year that he was judging the finalists."

Northern Illawarra artist Christopher Zanko, 31, also received a nod in the Wynne Prize, while Karen Black's portrait of iconic and much-adored Wollongong Art Gallery staff member Vivian Vidulich was chosen as an Archibald finalist. (Read about these entries here.)

The Archibald is awarded annually to the best portrait, while Wynne recognises either landscape paintings depicting Australian scenery or figure sculptures and the Sulman is for subject painting, genre painting or murals.