Natasha Walsh Dear Ben, ‘The scream’ (after Pope Innocent X)

This double-sided work looks at external perceptions of a person versus their internal experience, says Natasha Walsh, a six-time Archibald finalist. ‘It speaks to the role of the mirror in my practice as a vehicle for looking into this inner world. The viewer can only see the depiction of this private, unedited representation of my internal self through an actual mirror, in the same way that I can only see my outer self through a mirror.

‘This work is a painted letter to artist Ben Quilty. Ben was the first person who really saw something interesting in my intimate copper self-portraits.

‘The reverse side is a reworking of the image of The scream, which has travelled from its creator Edvard Munch to Francis Bacon and Ben’s own body of work. It looks at the way artists build on the work of the past in a visual conversation across time. I have always seen The scream as representing the absurdity of life; however, I am aware that in depicting it in the context of my sex as a woman, it may simply be seen as hysteria.’