Awake Elsewhere
Adam Southgate
- Sitter: Adam Southgate
- Medium: Oil on board
- Dimensions: 46 x 61 cm
- Representation: The artist represents themselves
About the artwork
This work is a self-portrait of the artist. Friends describe Adam as a natural empath, open-minded and slow to judge. In the strange months of 2020, he experienced the deaths of two close friends. He now stays awake through to the early hours of the morning, painting and thinking.
This self-portrait captures the existential dread that Adam experiences at 3:00 in the morning. The composition, colours and lighting is inspired by art history, drawing equally on Rembrandt’s chiaroscuro and the golden symmetry of the Ancient Greeks, while his clothing locates him squarely within his contemporary setting.
About the sitter
This piece is a self portrait.
About the artist
Adam Southgate is an emerging artist who specialises in paper-making and artist books. Born in San Diego to Japanese and Australian parents, Adam now lives in Brisbane and studies at Queensland College of Art. During self-isolation, Adam discovered a new love for painting, developing his mastery through dedication and practice.
“I only started working with paint just as we first went into lockdown in March, trying my hand at making my own gouache paints and working on small scale A5 paintings.”
Behind the scenes
Studying at Queensland College of Art, I initially majored in what I was most comfortable with, Drawing. Through experimentation, I found Paper-making and Bookbinding, and now Painting.
I only started working with paint just as we first went into lockdown in March, trying my hand at making my own gouache paints and working on small scale A5 paintings.
This self portrait is one of my first paintings in oil, and by far my largest. I worked with a divine symmetry grid to construct my underdrawing, it’s something I’ve been interested in and researching about recently. It aids in having a naturally harmonious composition whilst also helping to achieve a likeness of how I’ve been feeling and experiencing these strange times.
