Samuel Beckett

I always found Samuel Beckett's face immensely expressive, beautiful even; with those piercing, youthful eyes looking out intently from that wise, craggy face. Whilst doing this portrait I scanned in some old paper, streaked with creases, that I intended to use as a textured background. I noticed that the paper creases ran across the subject's facial features, inadvertently echoing the real creases and folds in Beckett's wrinkled skin.

I decided to utilize this happy accident as I realised how it seemed to suit the image of the famous poet and playwright setting his thoughts and experiences down on the surface of the paper, and of how that paper manuscript then becomes almost an extension of the writer; a physical record of his thoughts and ideas, set down for others to read.