“My painting style, I think, undermines the importance of the figure by obscuring its recognition. The image holds a peculiar familiarity but remains awkwardly distant from reality. For the painting of The Big Man I wanted to make a portrait that had just the bare necessities to get a feeling and image across. The background is painted flat with two colours and is reminiscent of the ribbon of the medal that is pinned on a chest. The face is painted violently and thick. This begs the question of whether the subject becomes less important than the construction of it as an image. The style may be seen as being more significant than the content. The subject is a figure I find fascinating, yet from the image it may be difficult to determine the identity.”