Alan Muller Convex

In 2020, the artist Allen Muller wrote about his Archibald Prize 1983 self-portrait:

‘??Convex?? is a very personal painting for me. It was completed during a very difficult time of my life. I was, at the time, literally facing my own demons.

When I painted this work I was 30 years old, openly gay and in a loving relationship. However I was still very much getting to know my partner and myself. My partner often talked about his “very colourful” sexual past. One night he confronted me with an accusation that “I hadn’t lived enough” and that I needed to explore my sexuality more. I found it confronting that someone I loved and who was my partner encouraged me to explore casual sex outside the relationship.

Because of the social stigma of being gay, many men chose to keep their life secret. This meant leading a double life and going to “beats” at night to meet other men for casual sex.

I worked on the portrait while my partner was in Melbourne for a few weeks. During that time, I began to explore the casual sex experiences he encouraged me to discover. Working on the portrait night after night and seeing myself in the convex mirror was not only an artistic challenge but a difficult personal one. When my partner returned to Perth he looked at the finished portrait and knew exactly what it captured. He was really understanding and compassionate.

The work was partially influenced by what I consider to be the best work ever to win the Archibald Prize – Brett Whiteley’s self-portrait Life, art and the other thing, in which the central work of three captured the movement of Whiteley actually painting himself.’