About Face - Concept and Ground Work
I painted a large self portrait dyptich recently for the Puke Ariki museum's Homework exhibition of Taranaki artists work. I had photographed it's stages of development from the beginning with the intention of blogging them here in "real time". However, as always with new and experimental work, I found my need to work in privacy overcame any desire to share the trials and tribulations of that working process in public. But now the painting is on the wall and the paint is almost dry, I feel more comfortable with sharing the documentation. I have for the last few years been concentrating on modest scale works in my Postcard From Puniho series. But recently I have felt the desire, confidence and ambition to do some larger scale work again. The question is "what subject"? Well, the self portrait is a genre that I have returned to many times, especially when I feel at some kind of cross-road in my life. Just turning round and taking a good har...