Graham Fransella Self-portrait

Graham Fransella entered a self-portrait in last year’s Archibald Prize, which was far more abstract than one would normally associate with the Archibald, to see if it would be accepted. It was.

Once again there is an edge in this self-portrait between abstract notions and traditional figurative notions. “Every time an artist paints someone they are really painting themselves,” argues Fransella. “You can only understand your own sensibilities so the likeness may be someone else’s but the sensibilities are yours. So really, you’re stuck with self-portraiture whether you like it or not.”

Fransella is not concerned with likeness so much as with geometry of presence. One feels there’s a figure there without the decoder of ear, nose and throat which is often an easy option. One can recognise people hundreds of metres away, for example, just by the way they walk.

“Likeness is transitory and rarely are you going to have the painting and the person side by side anyway, so I’m more concerned with giving some sense of the figure – that’s why the painting is reasonably abstract. There is a symbolic quality to it.”