Róisín Kennedy speaks with this year’s winner of the Ireland–U.S. Council and Irish Arts Review Portraiture Award at the Royal Hibernian Academy, Daniel Nelis
Donegal artist Daniel Nelis’ Boy and a Blanket is an intense self-portrait of a young man wearing a collarless shirt and a black Aran knit jumper, seated against a plain green wall and a patterned rug. The surface of the jumper contrasts with the light synthetic fibres of the blanket, while the coarse stubble on the youthful face and the bouncy, abundant hair bring in further levels of texture. All are contrasted by the smooth wall behind. The meticulous technique is redolent of Early Netherlandish portraiture of the 15th and 16th centuries in its attention to detail and in its use of strong lighting to articulate the minutiae of the features, such as the pores of the skin and changes in the skin tone. The intense expression of concentration and self-reflection is more obviously akin to the work of the English painter Lucian Freud (1922–2011), whose portraits are similarly introspective. The simplicity of the background and the restricted colour palette of green, black, white and orange, including the ochre skin tones, create a harmonious composition in which all the drama comes from the face of the sitter. The shadow cast by the young man’s head accentuates his features even further.
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