The immersive art exhibition where you can play a game of ping pong

As Canberra edges closer to winter, Thom Roberts' first solo exhibition, opening on Saturday at the National Portrait Gallery, is a burst of colour and an injection of optimism.

And it's probably one of the very few exhibitions in which visitors are invited to play a game of ping pong as they peruse the artwork. (More on that later.)

The Immersive World of Thom Roberts is also a free exhibition, just in time for the school holidays. And while it's bright, it's also deep. It's not geared to any age group, but amid the colour and the pink walls, there are some complex themes at play.

Roberts' works are bold, arresting and deceptively sophisticated.

The 49-year-old Sydney artist, who is autistic and has an intellectual disability, is excited to be holding his first solo exhibition.

It features more than 100 examples of his art including feature painting, installation and animation, as well as major new work.

With typical exuberance, he's calling it "Thom's great big show".

"I love to make art and do colourful paintings like painting bears and cars and trucks, buildings and trains. Everything around the world, 'till I become a very old man in the future," he said.

While he started painting as a child, Roberts has been a professional artist for only a decade, discovered and supported by Sydney social enterprise Studio A since 2016.

He's already a four-time Archibald Prize finalist, most recently in 2024 with Big Bamm-Bamm, a portrait of iconic Australian artist Ken Done. (That work is currently on a tour of regional galleries with the other 2024 Archibald finalists, next opening in Alice Springs on April 24.)

His work has also been featured in numerous prestigious exhibitions and is held in collections, including the University of Technology Sydney's and Artbank's.

Roberts also spoke at the 2023 College Art Association Conference in New York about, yes, "How to be an artist until you are a very old man".

There may be a handy "h" in Thom but the extra letter is almost superfluous.

This Thom Roberts produces work that is almost the polar opposite of the muted colours and sometimes melancholic subjects of the late great Australian artist Tom Roberts.

Thom Roberts is unique and, as he says, "I do it Thom's way".

Isobel Parker Philip is the director of curatorial and collection at the National Portrait Gallery, and the curator of the Thom Roberts exhibition.

"This is a really important show for us," she said.

"Thom is one of the most exciting portraiture artists practising in the country today.

"For Thom, portraiture is not just a genre and it's not just a question of subject matter, it's about how he interfaces and interrelates with the world around him."

Roberts often overlays his own sense of order on the world he lives in and the people he meets.

"So, when Thom meets someone, he might assign them a new name and give them a kind of avatar, like a building or a train or sometimes a fast-food outlet," Parker Philip said.

Roberts refers to himself as the still-under-construction Jeddah Tower in Saudi Arabia, planned to be the tallest building in the world, stretching one kilometre above the Red Sea.

He also sees himself as "the Country Express [XPT train] service getting phased out".

Canberra, in Roberts' mind, is "Chicago City" (harking back to Walter Burley Griffin's origins perhaps?). Ken Done was renamed Big Bamm Bamm after Bamm Bamm Rubble in The Flintstones. One of Roberts' fellow Studio A artists, Meagan Pelham, is Tinkerbell in Thom's eyes.

Isobel Parker Philip even scored her own Roberts-made moniker. She was re-named "Neenish Cake" by him and took it as a major honour.

"I'm not sure where that one came from, but I've embraced it whole-heartedly," she said, with a laugh.

Parker Philip eventually decided the perfectly symmetrical brown and pink icing of a neenish cake or neenish tart, as it is also known, was a reflection of her and Roberts working side by side to make the exhibition a reality.

Parker Philip says the way Roberts assigns people a new identity is "a kind of portraiture".

"It's a way through which he navigates the world and re-aligns his relationships," she said.

"And in this exhibition, of course, you'll see portraits that subscribe to our foundational idea of what a portrait is. You know, he paints people who are in his life and who are important to him.

"He also makes animations and sculptures and works on paper that are all about people.

"But, really, this is an exhibition that expands our idea of what portraiture is and how portraiture might be a gesture through which we engage with the world around us."

Parker Philip says Roberts was consulted about every aspect of the exhibition. He had never visited the Portrait Gallery, so came down from Sydney late last year for a site visit.

Many of the design elements of the show are a subtle nod to how Roberts responded to the space. Some brown paint left over from a previous exhibition excited him because he saw tunnels in it. So the brown paint - the tunnels - is there.

There is also the chance for visitors to play a game of ping pong, surrounded by an immersive video installation of Roberts' work.

"It's a very bright exhibition and it's really dynamic. The spaces really pop," Parker Philip said.

There is also a making space at the end of the exhibition, inspired by Roberts' series of self-portraits, each representing a different emotion.

"There's a space where visitors can create their own 'emotion portrait' and join a wall of faces," Parker Phillips said.

"We've wanted to ensure there's a deep interactive component."

Parker Philip says Roberts' work stands tall by itself. Just like the Jeddah Tower. There is no condescending to him because he has a disability.

"He's an artist, first and foremost," she said.

"His disability and his artistic practice are not intertwined. The way that he sees the world is compelling for any person."