In 2023 I was the winner of the Hornsby Art prize. At that moment I was asked to provide a written statement for some context about the winning painting, including the creative process and my conceptual approach. Below is what I came up with.

This writing process ended up being a good way to clarify what this work means to me. Much as I dread artist statements, this challenge is also an opportunity to make these insights useful to the applied work at the studio. Importantly such a text can inform a wider audience about the real considerations involved in artistic processes and the aesthetic aims of the artist. These efforts can easily transcend the jargon of our times and be a genuinely constructive attempt to communicate.

This painting was begun in 2014 at my Brisbane studio. As a work-in-progress it was rolled up and travelled with me to Leipzig, Germany in 2015. The painting was re-stretched and while living there for three years many elements were added and just as quickly painted out as the concept developed. It was a searching process, often striping the image back to simplify and thereby reflect upon what was central to the motif and my initial intentions.

Regularly Id turn the work away to the wall. Months later I would face it out again to reconsider. With fresh paint an edge might be sharpened or a new element scumbled-in, to tease out some new relationship across the composition and stir my imagination. This painting was an example of the kind that lurks in every artists studio, unfinished though still unfolding, portent and needing a resolution because its closure haunts the artists mind.

Weirdly such an artwork can seem to have a core and direction, even while an exact concept remains illusive and also frustrating! Its development is non-linear, in stops and starts, as a cyclical process. The image/concept moves at its own pace and finally the painting ‘Grows a face and looks at you’ as Kandinsky (?) observes.

The subject was a young American/Russian musician named Niika who modelled over several weeks. I asked her to wear something lavish which was about her life, this outfit is what she came up with. In the process of painting from life, I became caught up in the aura of Niika. As a natural performer she had presence even while quietly modelling in the studio.

Back in Australia, it was in 2022 the concept of the work came together, leading up to a solo exhibition at Maunsell Wickes Gallery, Sydney. At that time I searched online for Niika, remembering our discussion of music while modelling, her touring lifestyle and performances. Finally I saw her perform on stage and through her music videos suddenly appreciated this other incredible persona that she inhabited. She was captivating.

Niika conjured a whole world for her audience to enter. As a musical instrument herself, she could command her years of experience, reinterpreting her oeuvre freshly as a singular live performance. Leading her audience through these rare moments gave her an air of authority and mystique. Niika was a kind of seductress that drew fans in, yet with strong boundary, keeping her aloof; the hautiness assosiated with lead singers.

It dawned on me how strange the life of a public performer must be, so different from the solidarity studios hours of the painter. The primal thrill of a live audience was opposite to the contemplative, enquiring eye of the painter. That tense back and forth between her fans and the star, can also be one of co-dependence. Arriving at this insight it became clear that this was the essence of my painting and it gave coherence to all of the ideas previously pondered. If other conditions played out and a different creative journey of this painting had happened, it would have led to an alternative conclusion for this painting.

The many leering hands which encircle the protagonist seemed to express what I had learned about this other alien sphere of the music industry. The hands at the very front of the image was the final gesture which the painting needed. This solution could have only been found through the painting process itself, long and unsure as it was. The hands suggest the haunting potential of an intoxicated audience at the foot of Niika’s stage.

I do understand the painting has a slightly odd mood and atmosphere, even a creepy one. Which actually is the point of the painting! It conveys the kind of para-social relationships which can exist nowadays between people across chat and social media platforms, that are divorced from reality and real human bonds. Also it portrays an unhealthy kind of attention that is thrust upon a public individual. The painting is about the desire to cross this boundary and the tension in that dialectic of roles.

I always had faith the painting would conclude and be resolved.

Ryan W Daffurn 2023