Father John - Original

Father John began with a portrait of Dan and Serg’s friend John, but Dan used painting to take his familiar appearance somewhere entirely different. Leather, facial tattoos and exaggerated details are added to create an alternative persona - an imagined character that Dan felt was waiting to emerge from beneath the surface.

The transformation goes to the heart of the exhibition, PERSONAE and its exploration of identity as something that can be constructed, performed and reinvented. The tattoos become a kind of mask: rather than concealing John’s face, they alter the way it is read. Like a theatrical costume, the new markings allow another character to emerge, playing with the idea of the persona as the face or role we present to the world.

The tightly cropped composition heightens this sense of performance, confronting the viewer with John’s direct gaze while blurring the boundary between the person Dan knows and the character he has created.

Acrylic on canvas

60 x 80cm

Framed in a white tray frame. Please allow approximately 3 cm additional width and height for the overall framed dimensions.