This self-portrait has been selected as a finalist in this year’s Doug Moran National Portrait Prize.
During the COVID 19 Pandemic, restrictions forced many of us to be confined to our homes and studios and I began a painting to represent this time, showing myself through a window, locked in the studio.
After starting the work, I noticed that the edge of the canvas looked like the edge of a door and I thought, by painting it as such, it would give the work a *“Trompe-l’oeil” effect.
In most paintings the illusion of space is concerned with depth receding from the surface of the canvas back into the painting, but this painting allowed me to muck about in the virtual space in front of the canvas (? the space between 2D and 3D). By employing light and shadow effects the hands appear to project in front of the picture plane creating a greater illusion of “reality”.
(*Trompe-l’oeil French “to deceive the eye” ….. illusionary)