Self portrait with dead bird

This is a self portrait with a dead bird. I was exploring death and it effect on people. In particular I photographed a number of wild dead animals and shared the images to observe the reactions to an animal that people never knew. I decided to then create this piece to include the image of myself with the dead animal to further observe reactions. This work is the combination of two photographic images I have translated into this painting.

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Nathan J Lester was born in Canberra, the national capital of Australia, in 1976 to Margaret, a housewife, and Michael, a plumber and artist. The youngest of three children, he grew up with a heavy art influence through his parents.

Nathan J Lester discovered photography in 1991 and has been working as a visual artist using photographic medium for over 20 years. He does not regard himself as just a photographer as his art practice has expanded beyond just photographs. More recently his work has evolved into paintings based on his photographs. Each image is abstracted and painted onto canvas and is derived from a portrait of a person or a part of the body as this is the core of Nathan J Lester's photographic work. Working with only a small number of colours he creates striking and bold images on small through to very large canvases.

Nathan J Lester’s photographic works include a range of printing processes from traditional (black and white film) to old processes dating back over 100 years such as cyanotypes and anthotypes. He works with these old processes on a range of papers and items to further enhance the image being printed.
In addition to photographic prints and paintings, Nathan J Lester has created sculptural pieces from time to time.

Nathan J Lester has held solo exhibitions of his works in both Canberra and Sydney and has participated in group exhibitions in Canberra and New York. He also was commissioned to produce and install an ongoing public sculpture in Canberra in 2018.