JANINE GOOD

Artist Statement: Bill (William) Young Portrait

‘Immersed’, Oil on canvas 102x102cm

Artist Bill Young was a close friend and mentor to me and I was terribly saddened by his passing on July 28 2021 from Motor Neuron Disease.

This portrait was painted well before his diagnosis although at the time he knew something wasn’t right and he struggled with the hand position during the sitting.

Bill was an intelligent and thoughtful person, so I wanted to capture that contemplative expression of an artist immersed in his work. Bill once told me that when a painting nears completion, he might contemplate the work for some time just to place a strategic brushstroke of cadmium red or orange as an accent. With this in mind, the expression I have aimed to capture is that contemplative concentrated look of thoughtful meditation on the work, completely “immersed”.

For this portrait I placed Bill before one of his paintings ‘Tired Hills’ 2015. The painting is enlarged appearing like a poster taped to the wall behind him so that he can become consumed by the image. To accentuate this I’ve brought tree elements out of the painting to appear as twigs on his body simultaneously taking him into the surreal world of his painting.

I think it was appropriate that the painting I’d inadvertently selected for the backdrop to the portrait was Tired Hills. The trees are dying, the land is quietly suffering, as Bill was, but I didn’t know it at the time.