Jackson's Painting Prize 2022

“This is a current project I’ve been working on where I find psychoanalysis academic papers online and then I paint imagined scenes from what I read. This painting is based on ‘Eric’, a child who has undergone psychoanalysis for a few years. Each year he has four assessments with his parents and the therapist. I wanted to try and depict the tension between the family by placing them in the therapy room – a place that is becoming increasingly familiar, no longer stigmatised for treating mental health issues. Following on from my work ‘couples therapy’, in which I imagined and depicted my parents in a couples therapy scene. I draw inspiration from portrait artists such as Alice Neel, Chantal Joffe and early Lucian Freud, who all capture the internal psychology of the subjects they choose to paint, specifically in the eyes.”