This month I've been working on a portrait of Eamonn.

He is a man of contradictions — and I mean that as the highest compliment. There is mischief in his eyes and great gentleness in his manner. He has a profound faith and an equally profound scepticism about the institutions that surround it. He is deeply read, passionate about opera, and has strong opinions about the state of the world. 

We share a background in interiors and a love of the clean, considered lines of Scandinavian modernism (he spent his career in commercial design). But for the ornament in his portrait, I found myself drawn somewhere older. Something in Eamonn's sensibility — his curiosity, his faith, his sheer enjoyment of learning and the arts — felt more Renaissance than modern. I've been looking at Giotto and letting that conversation find its way into the painting's setting.

The colour, though, is more contemporary. That tension between old and new feels right for him. 

Eamonn 29cm x 38 cm 

Acrylic, Luminance and Neopastel.