Joe Furlonger Self-portrait

Joe Furlonger was born in Cairns, Queensland in 1952. He studied at Queensland College of Art and Alexander CAE. Furlonger exhibited regularly in Australia from 1982 onwards, including an exhibition organised by Ray Hughes entitled Twenty Australian artists. He is represented in most public and corporate collections in Australia. Furlonger was the winner of the Moet et Chandon Fellowship in 1988, granting him the next year in Eperny, France.

Self-portrait was completed prior to Furlonger leaving for Vietnam. 'I had been painting New Guinea figures dancing,’ says the artist, 'and I needed a break… I like doing portraits but they are such a problem because there are so many ways of approaching the subject and the environment’.

Furlonger painted himself standing up and striding through the picture to his image in the mirror. He used body-sized brushmarks and painted himself in his studio to make an open, flat painting. To Furlonger, the work has 'a genre background – the Queensland look – the sitter in his environment’. Furlonger is primarily known for his figures striding across landscapes.