Price range: $425.00 through $449.00
This artwork is on display at LRB Retreat & Private Gallery Experience.
It is not for sale online. You can view and purchase it in person at this location.
A wistful 1920s flapper rendered in black ink and soft grey washes, an original portrait of quiet self-discovery.
There is a moment, just before an answer arrives, when a face gives everything away. Searching For Self holds that moment still. A 1920s flapper looks upward and slightly away, her thoughts somewhere beyond the edge of the paper. Tousled dark curls fall around her face in loose ink strokes, her lips sit bold and dark against skin left almost bare, and a single ornate drop earring catches what little light the monochrome palette allows. She is glamorous in the way that era demanded, yet the glamour is not the point. The point is the question behind her eyes, the quiet wondering that every woman who has ever paused at a mirror will recognise.
The portrait is worked entirely in ink, a medium that forgives nothing and rewards nerve. Crisp black strokes define the curls and the sweep of the brows, while soft grey washes pool and fade around her like thought made visible. Flecks of splattered ink scatter across the paper, deliberate accidents that keep the surface alive. Ink dries fast and cannot be lifted once it lands, so every mark you see was committed to in a single breath. That tension between control and surrender mirrors the subject herself, precise where it matters, loose where feeling takes over. The work was painted by hand at Running Duck Studio in Dayboro, Queensland, where the slow rhythm of rural life leaves room for pieces that ask to be sat with.
Part of the Vintage Life Collection, Searching For Self borrows the look of the jazz age to tell a story that belongs to no era. The search for self is not solved in a single sitting. It is a lifelong practice of looking inward, questioning, and becoming, and this portrait honours the courage that takes. Hang her somewhere you pass every day, a hallway, a reading corner, a bedroom wall, and let her upward gaze remind you that the questioning itself is the achievement.
There is one more layer you cannot see in the frame. The work carries embedded augmented reality through the free Artivive app. Point your phone at the portrait and she stirs, the still image opening into movement that extends the story beyond the paper. It is a quiet surprise to share with guests, and it turns a framed original into something between a painting and a performance.
Searching For Self
This artwork is on display at LRB Retreat & Private Gallery Experience.
It is not for sale online. You can view and purchase it in person at this location.
