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The Learning Connexion student Catherine Sinclair certainly likes to insert her sense of humour into her work. Last time TLC talked with her she had just snuck her installation ‘100% SHEEP’ onto the front lawn of the Wellington City Gallery during its post refurbishment grand opening (inspired by Gregor Kregar’s live sheep installation at the 2007 ‘Prospect’ exhibition).

This time we found her in the more conservative setting of the New Zealand Portrait Gallery’s Adam Portraiture award. Catherine’s painting ‘Detail From a Five Hour Face Lift’ is one of this year’s finalists. Her work is a self-portrait of herself as a theatre nurse, from the point of view of a patient that she is working on.

She said that she was surprised when she heard that she was a finalist and was a bit nervous about how her work would stand up. Once she saw all the work up however, she stopped worrying.

Her painting took her two days to paint initially. She worked from a photograph that she got a colleague to take, but also put on a theatre hat and mask and did some work from life as well. She had the painting in her house for several months and kept tweaking it as she lived with it.

She said she wanted to play a little with the idea of self-portrait and the face. She set it up so the view is of someone changing their own face. The mask and hat covers most of her face and hair, but the eyes are often enough to recognize someone. “In theatre you meet people all covered up and it’s often a surprise when they reveal their hair or the rest of their face,” she says. “It’s interesting to think of how others see you.” She was also thinking about the idea of nurse as a saint or angel, with the light haloed around her.

Originally, she had thought of studying art but decided to get a real job – nursing. She spent some time overseas and did a lot of drawing especially of her dog and herself and when she returned, decided to go back and study art. (In between, she also did a zoology degree that involved a lot of dissection drawing). She completed a Diploma of Art and Creativity at the end of last year and has continued to nurse part time so that she can fund her art. It also provides her with a balance and she sees some parallels between the two professions. “Being a theatre nurse involves a lot of patience. You need full concentration, much like working on a painting.”

Her plans for the future include taking the sheep on an adventure, exploring combining self-portraiture and performance and using installation for social commentary. She doesn’t have financial expectations about her work. For her it’s about the ideas, the making, the process and exploring where it will take her next.