This painting combines oil paints with gold leaf and ink to create a layered material presence. The classical bust or head, is presented by the blending of a painterly treatment with sculptural references.

Alexander presents a calm, timeless gaze, emphasising idealisation and monumentality over narrative. There is an interplay of line, surface, and form, where the ink elements contribute a sense of definition, contour, and graphic clarity, contrasting with the more painterly tones of the oils. The gold, historically tied to icons and sacred objects, adds a sense of preciousness, and perhaps veneration.

Alexander the Great fuses the resonance of the classical world with the immediacy of contemporary painting. The multi-media approach layered on panel evokes the enduring aura of antiquity while making subtle interventions of line and surface. The gaze of the bust is not so much about a specific person but about the qualities we project: ambition, glory, and memory. Through material contrast and compositional restraint, the work invites viewers to reflect on how we mythologise greatness, how we sculpt history in our imaginations, and how the past lives on in the present.