Artist Statement 

Equation of a life - a portrait of Prof.Derek Denton AC

oil on linen 2016

130 x 90 cm

I was incredibly honoured to been chosen by Prof. Derek Denton, to paint his portrait for the National Portrait Galley. I purposely kept any preliminary research on him to a minimum, preferring to explore deeper after I would meet with him, when I travelled to his home in Melbourne. 

What struck me most poignantly was Derek’s love of The Arts, his varied art collection and numerous artist friends. Of course being married to a world renowned ballet dancer certainly immerses ones life into that collective, but one of the first things he told me, probably within five minutes of us being introduced was how only recently he had lunch with Francois Gilot in New York. This indeed did impress me because she was Picasso’s muse/lover and mother of his two children Paloma and Claude. 

Naturally though, I needed to incorporate Derek’s professional life in the portrait, his career as an internationally acclaimed research physiologist and his study and theories of consciousness in evolution. 

Whilst at the Howard Florey Institute, of which Derek was the Founding Director, I sat down with him and he drew a small diagram in my note-book explaining the process of Adrenal transplants in sheep, (the Florey is known as ‘The Sheep Hilton’ as much of Derek’s work involved their mechanisms.) It was here observing him drawing, that I also recalled that connection he had with Picasso and I remembered an image of Picasso painting an outline of a bull on a sheet of perspex, I also came across a book by Henry Moore in Derek’s office, which was filled with sketchy inked in drawings of sheep, all of these images resonated. 

Once back in my studio pondering how to bring such a full and extensive life such as Derek’s into a painted narrative, I explored the idea of Derek being behind that sheet of perspex, showing an audience diagrams, notes, formulae and illustrations. This way I could represent him immersed in his world; participating and surrounded by it. Having a narrative portrayed in front of the subject made for something more dynamic and layered, rather than in the background.

Also having the writing on the perspex in reverse, seemed to me a good way to engage the viewer and prompt them to discover more, to find out what ‘it means?’ - in a way not unlike Derek’s life research. 

I made a longer trip to Melbourne again this time to gather more specific reference material and to just spend time with him, time to just observe facial expressions and nuances over a number of days, but also to start to find which particular diagrams would work best as a summary. This process continued to the very end of the painted portrait, via various telephone calls and emails.

I marked up various versions of the diagrams on acetate sheet’s as I wanted that broad thick line that is evident with whiteboard markers, after which I was able to project them onto the canvas positioning them exactly so they didn’t detract from the main focal point, which was Derek. 

Final painting and colour detail adjustments were made when Derek visited my Sydney studio and then our collaboration was complete. I titled the work ‘ Equation of a life – a portrait of Prof. Derek Denton.’