FacingTime: Portraits of Geoff by Euan Macleod, is an allegory on isolation, loss, technology and most importantly friendship created during the Covid-19 lockdown.  The series of 321 portraits depicts fellow artists Euan Macleod and Geoff Dixon’s daily communication on FaceTime, a godsend for so many isolated by the onset of the pandemic.

The conversations started randomly, but were always photographed by Euan. In time the photos became paintings, a big portrait of Geoff, and a small one of the artist in the corner. Euan made a pledge with himself to paint one each day, as random snaps became planned seated poses while they discussed everything, including the death of Geoff’s partner. It became a distraction from a difficult world.

Their connections and disconnections, are now archived under a marriage of the historic ethic of painting and cell phone technology. The new way we talk.

Born in Christchurch in 1956, Euan Macleod completed a Diploma of Fine Arts (Painting) at the University of Canterbury. Moving to Sydney in 1981, he held his first solo exhibition the following year at Watters Gallery, East Sydney. Just as his works are infused with landscapes from both his birthplace and his adopted home, Macleod has, throughout his career, exhibited on both sides of the Tasman.

Since his Self-portrait; head like a hole won Australia’s most prestigious art prize, the Archibald Prize for Portraiture, in 1999, he has received numerous awards, including the Blake Prize for Religious Art in 2006 and the Gallipoli Prize (2009). Macleod is represented in public collections including the National Gallery of Victoria (Melbourne), Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa and Christchurch Art Gallery. A monograph, Euan Macleod—the painter in the painting, by curator/writer Gregory O’Brien, was published by Piper Press in 2010 and a major exhibition Euan Macleod – Painter toured New Zealand between 2014 and 2018

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