Trial and Error by Dennis McCart

Trial and Error earned its title over ten months of experimentation. This self portrait began as a life drawing, then became a construction, an oil painting, a photograph, before finally arriving as a laser engraving with oil glazes. “Each version failed to become the work I was searching for,” McCart says, “yet every attempt was necessary to finding it.” 

Part of an annual self portrait series that functions as an ongoing record of his evolving practice, this work is less a portrait of his appearance than a portrait of his process. The dark background “combines geometric lines with whimsical blurs”, reflecting the tension between order and intuition that underpins his practice. “Ultimately, this work is about the absurdity of making art, navigating analogue and digital processes to try and make sense of a changing world, all the while sitting alone in a room with a tube of paint.”