#56: Three Portraits, One Submission
This week I finally reached the moment I’ve been working toward for the past few weeks — submitting my entry for Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year.
Three portraits. Finished, photographed, and sent.
There’s always something slightly surreal about that moment when the work leaves your studio and enters the world. For weeks the paintings have been the centre of everything — the focus of every decision, every doubt, every late evening. And then suddenly they’re uploaded, submitted, and out of my hands.
What I Was and What I’ve Become
The main piece I submitted is my self-portrait, What I was and what I’ve become.
This painting has probably been one of the most emotionally complicated pieces I’ve worked on. It began as a detailed black and white portrait — something I could have comfortably finished and left there. But instead I pushed it further, layering colour through glazes and allowing parts of the painting to remain monochrome.
The result is a portrait that sits between two parts of my practice: the technical discipline of my graphite work and the looser, more expressive direction I’ve been trying to move toward.
In many ways, the painting became a reflection of that transition.
…And the World Keeps on Spinning
The second piece, …and the world keeps on spinning, which is inspired by the band Flat Moon, continues exploring some of the ideas that have been emerging in my recent work — particularly the sense of instability that comes from living with vertigo.
The title captures something I’ve felt for a long time: the strange experience of your own perception shifting while everything else appears perfectly normal. The world carries on, steady and predictable, while internally things can feel slightly off-balance.
Through portraiture I’ve been trying to translate that sensation visually — subtle distortions and layered perspectives that suggest movement without chaos.
Olivia Colman
Alongside those pieces, I submitted a black and white portrait of Olivia Colman.
After spending so much time wrestling with colour and expressive glazing, returning to monochrome felt strangely grounding. It brought me back to the fundamentals: observation, tone, structure.
It reminded me that the foundations of my practice are still there, even as the work evolves in new directions.
The Work Is Done
Submitting the paintings doesn’t mean the journey is finished, of course. Competitions like this always come with a degree of uncertainty. But that’s not really the point.
The important thing is that the work exists.
Three portraits that represent different parts of where I am as an artist right now — the technical, the expressive, and the exploratory.
And whatever happens next, they’re now out there.
.M.
Be real.
Make art.
If you’d like to learn more about my creative process or see my latest work, feel free to reach out or check out the rest of my website.