Hayden Seated

Roberta, Year 14

  • Painting
  • Oil paint on canvas
  • 600(w) 858(h) 30(d) mm

This piece was inspired by the way Lucian Freud rendered furniture in his portraits, giving objects the same force and discomfort as to merge the animate and inanimate. I wanted to display this in my piece through the use of similar tones for the armchair and in my sitter's skin; the shape of the chair also works to encase the figure and move around him, the right leg moving with the shape of his foot and the left leg omitted as if the chair is also relying on his figure for stability. In contrast to this question of balance in the body, Freud's faces often maintain an incredible stillness, and I wanted to capture a sort of contemplative dreariness in my piece which allows the viewer to stop, to focus on the textures of the brushstrokes and colours of the paint.