Bruce Armstrong Spook San (Gary James)

Bruce Armstrong has known artist Gary James for over ten years. He calls him Gary. To the rest of his friends and family James is Spook – hence the Casper the Ghost reference in the background of this portrait.

Six months ago Armstrong bumped into Spook, who was wearing a jacket with a grandad collar. ‘I started calling him Spook San because it reminded me of a uniform worn by Japanese school boys,’ says Armstrong. ‘So that’s the image. It’s an amalgamation of things. One doesn’t have one brilliant idea. Often it’s the putting together of several different ideas which you chuck into the pot and see what comes out.’

A sculptor most of the time, Armstrong finds painting difficult but loves doing it – though only portraiture. He had a portrait of artist Jan Senbergs in the 1994 Archibald Prize.

Born in Melbourne in 1957, Armstrong studied at the Victorian College of the Arts then gained a Graduate Diploma in Sculpture and a Bachelor of Art in Sculpture from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.