Oil on linen, ready to hang.

Signed on the back.

Portrait of Tsering Hannaford.
*Winner of Kennedy Art Prize People's Choice Award*

One of South Australia's painting luminaries, Tsering is a well known name in art circles, being a multiple finalist in the Archibald Prize among many others. It has been my privilege to know her as a friend and watch her journey as she stepped out of the shadows and established her own practice and career. Few have the drive and focus as well as the integrity and honesty that Tsering gives to her craft.

This painting strives to reflect some of that strength, honesty and focus. All artifice and conceit has been stripped away from this portrait, focused as it is solely on the face and at a scale that feels more intimate and more real than one would normally feel comfortable observing in day to day life. Likewise the nature of the high fidelity rendering invites the viewer further into this painting to spend time with it and invest themselves in it. In doing so they may begin to relate to the intensity of Tsering's gaze focused not to the viewer, but off the canvas, engaged with its own subject and attempting to relate, understand and connect. The subtitle: Darkness and Light is reflected in the construction of the piece with the intense dark curve of Tsering's hair and the luninosity across her face splitting the canvas into a Yin-Yang composition.

This painting was awarded the People's Choice award in the 2021 Kennedy Arts Prize and was a finalist in the Darling Portrait Prize at the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra.