Melissa Clements In the driveway, 40°

Melissa Clements’ self-portrait was painted in summer when the weather was stifling hot.

‘It captures a moment at the end of a long day in my studio in Perth, which has no air-conditioning. As I drove home, I felt exhausted not only from the oppressive heat, but from the creative expense that artists endure, and from feeling a bit like an alien in a country I wasn’t born in. I had recently returned from a trip to the UK, where I was born, after several years during which border closures had prevented travel,’ says Clements, a first-time Archibald finalist.

‘The small scale of the work forces the viewer to get close to the painting and confront my gaze, which is scrutinising and inquisitive, but also somewhat fatigued. I like to play around with ideas of gaze, and the relationship between artist, subject and viewer.’

Clements usually works in a larger format on wood panel but chose cotton paper for this work. She often utilises classical painting techniques, such as verdaccio, a type of greenish underpainting developed in the early Renaissance, which she has used in this portrait.