Eliza Gosse somewhere near home

The subject of this painting is architect and designer Benjamin Jay Shand.

‘He sees beauty in the most peculiar places, has great hair and likes to wear sunglasses more than is usual. I can say that because he is my husband,’ says first-time Archibald finalist Eliza Gosse.

‘I don’t often paint people; however, Benj finds himself the constant muse for my sketchbook scribbles. And as this is my first large-scale portrait, it felt natural for him to be the subject.

‘I named the work somewhere near home as the background doesn’t exist; instead, I’ve used a collection of vignettes viewed on our walk home together from our studios in the evenings. Benj is a great observer of things and his eye has inspired many of my paintings,’ says Gosse.

‘In my work I’ve always been interested in using shapes to depict a subject. It is easy to treat a building in this way but somewhat harder with people. My aim in this painting was to think of Benj as a simple series of shapes – something he is most certainly not.’