Between Sittings
Jamie Cole
Between Sittings [detail] 2025
Portrait of Bruce Ferguson
Digital photographic print
30 x 30 cm
About the Artwork
Between Sittings was taken during a break while I was making a painted portrait. Away from the formality of the sitting, the photograph captures a moment of rest and closeness that felt natural and unplanned. Bruce reclines toward our dog Lulu, and the image settles into a space of comfort and ease rather than performance or pose.
I chose Bruce as the sitter because he is someone I know deeply and live alongside. That familiarity allows a different kind of portrait to emerge—one grounded in trust, patience, and shared experience. For me, portraiture is not only about looking, but about time spent together and the care that develops through it. This photograph reflects that exchange, and the quiet moments that exist around the making of an artwork, where tenderness and connection are most clearly felt.
About the Artist
Jamie Cole is an artist based in Cairns. Working across painting, photography and mixed media, his practice explores intimacy, identity and contemporary Australian life through a lens shaped by queer lived experience. Before focusing primarily on painting, Cole worked professionally as a photographer and photography teacher, a background that continues to inform his sensitivity to light, composition and tone.
His work balances humour and tenderness with cultural critique, drawing on pop iconography, symbolism and personal narrative to examine visibility and belonging. He has exhibited widely across Australia, and has been a finalist in the Percivals Portrait Painting Prize, the National Contemporary Art Prize, and the Fisher’s Ghost Art Award. Recent exhibitions include Welcome to Paradise, Garden of Tropical Delights and Fever Dreams.