It was a joy and a challenge to recreate the painting of Venice in the background of this piece. To trace the hand of a master is to really attempt to understand what it takes to create something so extraordinarily perfect.

As a student at the Victorian College of the Arts from 1990 to 92 I played around with many old master images including Durer, Vermeer and Parmagianino in an attempt to understand the techniques of painting. It’s a theme I often come back to and by utilising the Old Master image as a “painting within a painting” it sets off many other contemplations about what a painting is and the threads it weaves through history.

This painting plays with other ideas too. Having built a house and studio this year it references Kevin McLeod and the high standards he has set us through his TV series, Grand Designs.

I chose Venice as the background to also reference Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities and the notion of stories and trade between East and West. The sense of desire through consumption and travel also exemplifies this idea of trade, beauty and the craving for the new and unknown.

The Giant Tortoise is perhaps the most perfectly formed of all creatures carrying his home with him, but in this painting he too has succumbed to the desire of the aspirational and imagines extensions and renovations. The models he carries reference Michelangelo’s dome and Palladio’s loggia – perfection and beauty. - Kate Bergin