Adam Mazzon

Photorealist painting of powerlifter Adam Mazzon

The reason for this painting is that I lost a bet with Adam Mazzon. I was training at his gym (PTC Eltham) when my being overweight came up.

“Oh, I can lose 30kg by the end of the year.”

“I bet you won’t.”

“Ok then. When I lose all that weight, you can fix me up with a root with a hot woman.”

“And what if you don’t?”

“I’ll paint your portrait and enter it the Archibald Prize.”

We shook hands.

And I didn’t lose any weight at all.

I started this painting early in 2021 and I used a canvas as a support instead of my usual MDF board. It took many hours just in the preparation phase. Apply gesso, sand, apply gesso, sand… Eventually that part was done and the drawing stage was undertaken. A lot of hours went into that. Then came the painting. Many more hours.

And then I stopped. I had decided to paint another work for the 50 Squared Art Prize; which took several weeks of intense effort. Ultimately, I failed at that little adventure. You can read about that here. For many months, I barely painted anything. I was totally despondent. It was another blow at my attempt to get a foot in the door of the ‘art world’.

Early in 2022, I resumed my Adam Mazzon portrait. I spent a great deal of time on completing this work. I had re-read the rules of the Archibald Prize and realized that my use of a photographic source clearly contravened the rules, so I planned to enter this into the Sulman Prize. The morning of 10th March I was on the last leg of my journey with this artwork. Disaster struck.

I went to apply the final clear acrylic coat and the red lettering at the bottom smeared. You can read what I wrote about it on Instagram here. I cleaned it up pretty good, but in terms of time for a pickup by the freight company, I was outta luck.

So what you see here is the form as it is today. It will eventually be repaired.

I am extraordinarily proud of my technical prowess, and this painting is no exception.

You can see all the related posts for my Adam Mazzon portrait painting here.