There is a tension in the glance towards the mirror, which encourages us to ‘perform’ to our own reflection. How do we look, how are we standing, are our clothes straight, is our hair in place, what do we want to present to the world?This tension theoretically underpins Lacanian theories relating to the ‘mirror stage’ of individual psychological development. The mirror stage concept describes the relation between the ego and the body, characterized by illusions of similarity and reciprocity, but also to the relation between the imaginary and the real. A child at six months can recognize itself in the mirror before attaining control over its bodily movements. The child sees its image as a whole, and the synthesis of this image produces a sense of contrast with the uncoordination of the body, which is perceived as a fragmented body. This contrast is first felt by the child as a rivalry with its own image, because the wholeness of the image threatens it with fragmentation, and therefore the mirror stage gives rise to an aggressive tension between the subject and the image. This is of particular interest to me, as I relate to this theory but in being an adult. But the way how I have adopted this concept is by placing the ‘mirror stage’ mentally like looking at the person in front of you, who you share some sort of relationship with. The person somehow becomes your ‘mirror’.I try to reenact my concept when I paint my subject, thus I consider there to be a ‘mirroring’ which occurs in the space between the artist and the model or ‘sitter’., The sitters are chosen from friends and colleagues who enter into the space between myself and paint as a mediums for the exploration of gazing in to the relationship between two people.They gaze at me as I gaze at them each of us isolation, contemplating the intimacy of the space that includes the activity of painting and being painted, observing ourselves being observed in an intensification of the momentary glance into the mirror at our isolated selves.I seek to capture a particular emotion or sensation, the feeling of intense solitude felt by someone who is, paradoxically, in the company of others. This could be within the dynamic of an intimate relationship, that of a couple of lovers, or within a circle of friends or a large crowd of people. The subject or subjects are isolated, within the framework of the canvas or the surface skin of paint on the mirrors face.I have developed a series of paintings on both canvas and mirrors. The mirror pieces, in which two mirrors are placed directly facing each other, represent a single composition, as the viewer studies each mirror separately he/she sees each image or subject separately, while the other image reflected appears distant and distorted, almost illusory. Within the subject’s solitude, the outside world and in particular, the other subject appears unclear and inaccessible. The physical separation between the mirrors serves to represent the emotional separation that exists between the subjects.