Steve Bowden Images in the mirror

Although primarily a landscape and still-life painter, Steven Bowden chose to do a self-portrait for the Archibald for practical reasons. His studio is too small for another sitter but he was there, so was the mirror. Voilà.

“A tonal realist,” Bowden painted exactly what he saw. The hardest part, he says, was putting on his glasses. “They have to be done last so that they don’t distort the face so I wore contact lenses for the whole portrait until it came to painting the glasses.”

An artist, craftsman and composer, Tasmanian-based Bowden has exhibited in group shows since 1989. He won first prize in the 1993 ANZ Exhibition in Hobart and first prize in the 1995 Royal National Exhibition in Launceston.