Self Portrait in the Night Studio

36 x 36 cm
Acrylic on Gesso Board
1998

I have painted very few self-portraits in my life. The Self Portrait from 1998 is set in the telephone exchange working through the night on the painting “Even the Fish Cried”. My daughter Alice was yet to be born but two children cling to my legs, the painter, the father who is scared to go to the cash machine . It can sometimes be tempting to romanticise the life of an artist, but the reality is that it can be a very difficult path to walk indeed. The luminous spiritual glow of the painting pulls the painter forward whilst all around the darkness pushes him along. I’ve often been most productive as an artist in the months of darkness and part of my learning curve in surviving the Shetland winters has been to not to try to fight the darkness by attempting banish it, but rather I taught myself to be engulfed by it which at times was extremely uncomfortable indeed.