Self portrait
Highly Commended
Mark Dober
Self portrait (detail) 2024
Portrait of Mark Dober
Oil on canvas
50 x 40 cm
About the Artwork
This work was made in the studio while looking in the mirror. My painting, whether landscape or portraiture, is grounded in observation. I paint with directness and immediacy. I seek to express a sense of myself in interaction with the subject: the work is as much about the experience of seeing as it is of what is seen. A sense of the experiential and the lived moment features in all of my work.
Mostly, my portraiture is of myself – as I am available. I also paint my wife with our cat.
About the Artist
Mark Dober is an established artist, who holds a PhD in Painting from Monash University. The focus of his art practice lies in making paintings and drawings on site in the landscape, both locally (central Victoria) and at residencies.
He regularly holds solo exhibitions of landscape painting at regional galleries: in recent years, these have been at Geelong, Mildura, Wagga Wagga, Windsor (Sydney), Castlemaine, Warwick, Bathurst, Swan Hill, Tuggeranong, Wodonga and Benalla.
Mark’s portrait painting is made directly from the subject. The work is made to be shown in contemporary art prizes (most recently in the Salon des Refusés in Sydney and the Rick Amor Self Portrait Prize in Melbourne).