A self portrait of artist Sidney Nolan, created in 1988. Oil on composition board measuring 121 centimetres in height and 91 centimetres in length.

The frame is a warm gold with soft pink textured strokes worked in. The portrait focuses on Nolan’s head and upper torso and the use of colour with blue tones, blushing pinks and subtle greys unifies the background and figure. Large brush marks create texture in the otherwise flat blue and grey toned background. This contrasts with the figure where the artist has applied the paint with his fingers, and the white surface of the board is revealed in sections.

Nolan is unclothed, painted in an abstract style with colours alternating between fleshy pink tones and a bruisy blue. His head is a bulbous oval, the back of the head carries the shape of his mid-length wispy hair and is rendered in smudged finger marks. His face is ambiguous, with a sense of being both in profile and in three-quarter view. A set of round glasses perch on the bridge of his nose which is in profile. Playing around with perspective, the glasses are shown in three-quarter view as if he was turning towards us. His left eye is blurred, disguised by the frames. His lips are in profile view, stained a deep blue and heavily smudged with finger marks dragged through the paint.

Trailing from his neck in the profile view is a wobbly striped blue and orange tie. His body is cropped at the chest and shoulders by the frame.

The artist signature, ‘nolan’ above the numbers ‘88’, are painted in small orange letters in the bottom right-hand corner.

Audio description written by Alana Sivell and voiced by Molly Desmond