National Gallery of Australia | Audio Tour | National Indigenous Art Triennial 07

I started this series of drawings with my ‘heroes’. A portrait of my grandfather, Mick Miller. He was larger than life and held a special role in society. Grandfathers are already fully evolved when you meet them. Their personality is not evolving or growing, it’s set in stone…Different to the father–son relationship. Grandfathers have an immediate fondness toward their grandchildren. They are also very much heroes to everyone in the family. I thought it was natural to want to portray them on a large scale, to make them large drawings. If I made a video of my grandfather I would want it to be projected really big… I’ve done a few self-portraits in pastels to try it in the past, but other than that. not many. It’s really just like any self-portrait – I just do whatever strikes me at the time. I have license to make any comment that strikes me. They also say more about me than any other work because they are unavoidably me. When I am making them I don’t have to worry about making the subject look good, or port