© National Portrait Gallery 2025
King Edward Terrace, Parkes
Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia
Phone +61 2 6102 7000
ABN: 54 74 277 1196
National Photographic Portrait Prize 2007 Finalist
This is a self-portrait. The subject is a Sydney-based artist whose work is a lived and considered response to the human condition. In particular, it concerns the individual in relation to their social context, and the tidal mechanisms that form and influence unquestioned attitudes and mass acceptance. Here, there is apparent emergence from a certain dark that faces squarely some found light. The image may serve after all as a metaphor for the subject's coming to terms with his own tininess, his own insignificance. It was captured directly using a flat bed scanner, a technique believed to be unique in its application to photographic portraiture. The image remains true to the one captured; the qualities of observed distortion, blur and embracing darkness are characteristic of this technique.
Photography is the most pervasive and popular medium for portraiture and makes a natural fit with the Gallery, being a natural extension of the Gallery's longstanding commitment to photography as a contemporary portrait medium.
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