The young British-American painter Issy Wood has gained an international reputation as one of a generation of artists who have rebooted the relevance of figurative painting within a culture dominated by the circulation of digital images. Using a language influenced by Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s “pearly period” as well as the collages of Hannah Höch and John Stezaker, and shaped by the visual languages of advertising, pornography, fashion and social media, Wood’s ominously intimate still lifes and fragmented self-portraits are both seductive and troubling.

Eleven of these self-portrayals have recently gone on show at the National Portrait Gallery in London to launch Artist Focus, a new strand devoted to contemporary artists who are expanding and challenging the genre of portraiture.