Gabrielle Chamroenvidhya, 1983
Oil on canvas, 22 × 22 cm
This small portrait belongs to an early period of research into observation, colour and the construction of the image.
The frontal composition is deliberately restrained. The figure emerges through a limited range of dark green, ochre and reddish-brown tones, while the features of the face are defined as much through line as through modelling. The painted surface remains perceptible; representation never entirely conceals the material from which the image is made.
Seen from the perspective of my later work, the painting reveals an early concern that would continue in different forms: the passage between what is seen and how an image is constructed.
