A local artist said they are “astonished” to have been shortlisted for a prestigious national art award with a self-portrait inspired by the work of Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore.
Dr Adam Perchard was recently named in the shortlist for the Herbert Smith Freehills Portrait Award for their self-portrait “Bed”.
The piece was showcased at Capital House as part of the ‘I Extend My Arms’ group exhibition hosted by ArtHouse Jersey.
The Herbert Smith Portrait Award, formerly known as the BP Portrait Award, is open to artists across the UK.
Since its inception, the long-standing competition has attracted over 40,000 entries from more than 100 countries.
Dr Perchard said the submission process involved sending the National Portrait Gallery a digital image of the portrait, with a short brief about how and why they had painted it.
Upon being shortlisted, the painting was shipped to London to be judged “in the flesh”.
Inspired by the “theatricality” of staged self-portraits
Dr Perchard’s oil-based portrait “Bed” was created during a five-day artistic residency at the Greve de Lecq barracks in June 2024.
Five queer artists were invited by ArtHouse Jersey to make work responding to surrealists artists Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore.
Dr Perchard said they were specifically inspired by the “theatricality of their staged self-portraits”.
“If you look carefully at the painting, you can see that my right hand is holding a little remote-control clicker that’s causing my iPhone to take the photograph I painted from,” they explained.
“It’s been a lovely confidence boost”
Dr Perchard said there is a skeleton present in the portrait because it was painted after a long period of physical illness.
They explained: “The painting is partly a meditation on that, but also on the many years I’ve spent in bed for other reasons – rest, pleasure, dreaming, sex, love, depression, drugs and the bed as a site of queerness.
“The world at the moment is full of people getting quite exercised about what queer people get up to in the privacy of their own bedrooms. Perhaps I’m partly saying: ‘Here it is, babies – here’s my big queer bed. Look upon my rainbow skeleton and despair!’”
Dr Perchard entered the Herbert Smith Freehills Portrait Award competition “on a whim”, so they were pleasantly surprised to be shortlisted.
“I am incredibly proud and, to be honest, astonished,” they said.
“I never really thought they’d look twice at it! It’s been a lovely confidence boost.”
“Dancing the tango with impostor syndrome”
The artist said that the award was “one of these things that’s just lived at the back of my mind”.
“I knew it was one of the most prestigious portrait awards in the UK, and when I found myself having painted a self-portrait that I was relatively happy with, I thought – why not?” they said.
Dr Perchard added: “I’ve only got back into making visual art over the last few years and, other than school, I’ve never had any formal training, so I have been dancing quite the tango with impostor syndrome.
“This is a lovely reassurance that I’m going in the right direction and that I should have the courage to keep going.”