Competitions
Liam Nunan
Instagram: @liam_nunan
Website: https://www.liamnunanartist.com/
Artwork Title: The Insomniac
Artwork Medium: Oil on canvas
Year Created: 2025
Artwork Description:
A Self - portrait.
Artist Statement:
Self-portraits have become a regular and important part of my practice. They serve as a way to shake off inhibition and check in with myself.
This particular work was made during a time of extreme unrest.
I've never been a great sleeper, but over the past eighteen months, ongoing health issues have led to long stretches of insomnia. Painting from life, with no clear end in mind and distraction as the only goal, this piece became my occasional midnight project - added to, scrubbed back, and reworked at different stages of sleeplessness.
Now that my sleep has returned, it feels appropriate to accept this portrait as complete. In hindsight, I can appreciate its humour through its sheer intensity, and also recognise it as a reminder that even the worst moments eventually pass.
Artist Bio:
Liam Nunan is a Sydney-based actor and painter. Primarily self-taught, he grew up in Brisbane, where he began drawing from a young age. In 2010, he moved to Sydney to study acting at the National Institute of Dramatic Art, and has since enjoyed a successful theatre career, performing with companies including Sydney Theatre Company, Belvoir, Griffin, Malthouse, and the Sydney Opera House.
Liam began oil painting in 2019, channelling his love of theatre, storytelling, and character into portraiture and figurative work. That same year, he won the Lester Prize for Portraiture.
Now working full-time as a painter, his practice spans portraiture, figurative, still life, and landscape painting. His work is held in private collections internationally, and has appeared in Real Living and Art Edit magazines, and will feature in Season 4 of Apple TV+’s The Morning Show.
