About this artwork

Each painting is a steppingstone. You cannot create a new painting without having created all the ones that came before. This idea led me to create “Self-portrait on rags”.
All painters are familiar with the countless rags lying around their workspace that they have used to clean their paint brushes. Looking at mine one day reminded me of photographs of Lucian Freud, rags towering in corners of his studio. They also became a feature in many of his paintings alongside the models.
My painters’ rags hold stories of previous paintings. The colours mixed for specific pieces with paint marks left from the brushes as I clean them.
For “Self-portrait on rags” the canvas is made of these rags stitched together, stretched over a frame and prepped with clear gesso. The portrait, painted directly onto the rags in oils, shows the artist poised ready to start working on the next painting.
It is important to see all the colours and brush marks on the rags from the previous paintings in the background and on the rag I am holding. The painting remains unframed as I want the rags that stretch around the edges to be visible.