This 2011 portrait of David Chalmers is by Nick Mourtzakis. It is oil on canvas and measures 185 centimetres by 122 centimetres.

The philosopher David Chalmers studies consciousness. The artist was inspired to create a portrait that captures this non-physical, abstract quality of thought.

The portrait depicts David’s head and neck, large in the middle of the picture, constructed from a myriad of densely overlapping and intersecting straight light and dark blue lines on a plain white background.

David’s facial features, articulated within this geometric haze, have a greater intensity of colour and form than other areas of the head that seem to disappear and dissolve. The eyebrows are tilted inward as though in concentration, the eyes are heavily lidded, the nose slightly upturned. The closed mouth turns up on the left side. All of this is drawn with sketchy, sharp blue lines.

A thin vertical strip, a gap, runs the length of the head dividing it in two.
Near both the bottom and the top of the painting are thin grey horizontal lines going from the left to the right of the image. Beyond these there are no blue lines, only the white background.

Audio description written by Marina Neilson and ready by Carolyn Eccles