Portrait of Duncan Burnett

I'd done a portrait of Duncan about five years prior to this, but it really wasn't very nice at all. In that one I'd given him a really fat belly. Needless to say, he wasn't very amused with it. At the time that I did this one I was very conscious that I was bringing my portrait series to a close, and I just owed him a nicer paintings than that. Regardless of that, I was interested in him again as a new subject.

I'd known Duncan for years, since I'd first moved to Kansas City, from the old Rock Therapy record store. We were both part of the punk rock scene then, and Duncan was still interested in music although his tastes had vered towards the Nick Cave/ Tom Waits/ Leonard Cohen camp. He'd gotten into a habit of wearing suits, so he generally looked sharp. The stance that he's in, with his hand on his chest, is a typical Duncan stance. The musical angels that surround him only reflect his passion for music. I put a book on a table since he's also a reader. At the time of this painting he was rooming with another guy in a small apartment, in a room so small that one door of the room was unusable since he kept his television against it.

I was using a lot of blue in this period.

 

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