Euan Macleod Self-portrait/head like a hole

Euan Macleod describes this painting as ‘an internal rather than an external self-portrait. It refers to that positive/negative space; that big black shadowy area’.

The self-portrait relates strongly to the other work that Macleod is doing at the moment. Beyond that he prefers not to explain too much ‘because it limits the way people read the painting. I like people to make their own assumptions’.

This is Macleod’s first appearance in the Archibald Prize. He was a finalist in the Sulman Prize in 1996 and the Wynne Prize and Sulman Prize in 1998. He has had numerous solo exhibitions in Australia and New Zealand, and his work is represented in public collections including the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

This Archibald Prize-winning self-portrait is now in the collection of the University of Technology Sydney.