Nominated for the Dutch Portrait Prize (Nederlandse Portretprijs)

Last week, with about 130 other artists, I headed off to Slot Zeist for the final round of the Dutch portrait prize nominations. The long list of 120 had been selected from roughly 1300 works, and the jury had the unenviable task of choosing 50 works to put forward for the prize. The tension grew as every now and then another 20 or so artists were told they hadn’t been selected, until finally at around 6 pm, they announced the 50 nominations on the steps of the castle. I couldn't quite believe it when I heard my name called out!

Here is a short film made of the day (in Dutch), and here you can admire the work of the 50 nominees. Of course, you will be able to see them all in the flesh when the exhibition opens on 1 September. More info to follow about this...

To the left is my nominated portrait, a self-portrait painted in the fading mid-winter light of 2018. I painted it on a panel made by another artist friend, Sherry Gionet. I loved the size of the panel, but had tried various paintings on it which hadn’t worked and I had sanded them away. I think this was the third painting I made on this panel. Third time lucky as they say!

In the past few months, Deirdre Daly has been photographing me at work. I thought I would share this photograph she made one of the days she dropped by when I was putting the finishing

touches to the self portrait. More about Deirdre to follow in another post...

Meanwhile, lots to do! Thanks for reading!