This self portrait illustrates my later more mature style. I was just having fun, pretending to be a real painter like my hero Van Gogh. I had also developed my technique and I composed this painting entirely in monotone, white and burnt umber, that way I could work out the drawing and the composition before applying color. The result is that the colors are much more vibrant because I didn’t have to correct mistakes.

The pipe is entirely fiction. I was not smoking a pipe at that time and have never been a pipe smoker except on a few occasions. I put it there just for fun: to compliment the paint brush, and so I could paint the whiffs of smoke. I love the contrast of the light round whiffs against the rest of the painting which is so bold and geometric.

I am intrigued looking back on these self portraits years later. A Self portrait is by definition very autobiographical. A theme I see in all of them is that I am trying to bring diverse fragmented elements together into a cohesive whole, this is a core aspect of my career far beyond just the art.