Andrew Southall self-portrait series a chronicle of ageing

Andrew Southall's​ new exhibition is called Will These Do, Mr Hockney? As the artist – who has been working for over 50 years – explains it, he was reading a David Hockney biography and was startled to read that in his opinion you are only a real artist if you do self-portraits.

"Until that point I had not attempted self-portraits so the implication was clear. I picked up a charcoal, looked into an old cheval mirror and began my next contest," Southall says. That was four years ago and the artist, who may still be best known for his abstractions, has painted 166 self-portraits since.

What began as a challenge of "getting the proportions right" has become a chronicle of ageing. "I have tried to be honest, never one to sanitise reality, and present my ageing self and its many moods and dispositions as I see it," he says. The exhibition will be officially launched at the La Trobe University Visual Arts Centre, Bendigo, on Saturday.

latrobe.edu.au/vac