Weeks before his tragic death on January 22, Heath Ledger sat for Australian painter Vincent Fantauzzo. It was the first portrait he allowed to be be painted of himself and undoubtedly the last.
Vincent talks about working with the 28-year-old actor: “Before we did the painting we talked to all hours,” he says. “The night before, we talked about the painting and about art, and about all sorts of things.”
The prophetic image “was an idea we discussed together and came up with… it was about how we all have different consciences and voices in our head that tell us what to do and how to react. They’re not good or bad, they’re just voices that we hear, telling us how to behave. That’s what the other figures are in the painting.”
During the sitting of the portrait he was very quite. “Heath was really serious and focused and almost in a meditation. He’s quite serious.”
Heath met Vincent through Australian pop star N’fa and quickly became friends. They have been planning this portrait for years. “Heath was very private. He never let anyone paint him for that reason, because he felt it was quite a personal thing, to be painted. I think Heath was really feeling quite comfortable with himself recently, so it was easy to do it this time around. He gave me a call [in December] and said he was in Perth… so I jumped on a plane right away, and that’s where we did the painting.”
Heath, unfortunately, never saw the finished painting.
“It’s a real shame, because I never let people see a painting until it’s completely finished. I had been text-messaging photos to all our friends, and he was the only one who didn’t get to see it.”
Emails have been pouring in from fans all over the world since Heath’s death. Vincent says, “It’s amazing how many people he touched, and it’s pretty cool to be a part of sharing” the Heath that he knew. That Heath “loved and adored” daughter Matilda, got involved in his friends’ projects, and lit up a room. “He was very free-spirited and he took his own road, his own path to success. When you met Heath or when you were in a room with Heath, he had such an amazing energy, such a strong presence.”
“Heath had such a distinctive voice, I wanted people to look at the painting and think of his voice and what he could be saying. I think that when someone looks at the painting, it’s tempting to know what he’s saying or what he’s whispering, so they can imagine it themselves, but they’ll never know.”
The painting has been an entry for Australia’s Archibald Prize 2008 for portraiture, which is what he and Heath had planned on painting it for.
The painting acts as an homage to Heath, his friends and family are still focusing on their loss. “It’s just been really hard on everyone. I think now is a really hard time, because reality kind of kicks in. Time slows down and everyone just misses him.”
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