Self Portrait (Red Rope)
Sep 2024
500 x 400mm
Oil on Canvas
This piece was a bit of a surprise. The source photo was one of me from 2019, long since filed away and mostly forgotten. Then I bought in several bigger canvases for another project, and found the image in my 'might work' pile. I had half an idea of trying a similar colour palette to recent works, but given how red-focused the photo was I was mostly just going with that.
Then I got white and red paint down on the canvas, and added yellow for toning. This lifted it a bit, but it was missing something. So I added blue for highlights on the white. Suddenly the whole thing became more! It jumped to life in a new way. It does echo somewhat the colour usage in Presenting, which was a favourite of mine and something I'd struggled to replicate on newer pieces. This is a style I'm really quite happy with, and hope to produce more along these lines.