25 June, 2013 2:16PM AEST

The story behind the painting: Ian Gaillard 'The Builder'

For Northern Rivers Portrait Prize artists Lindsay Moffatt, he searched high and low for the perfect subject for his portrait, but in the end, the perfect person was right in front of him.

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"It was a case of looking around and I had wanted to paint an ambulance driver or someone like that, but they never eventuated.

"All the while Ian was in my backyard day to day as my builder."

Ian Gaillard has been the forefront of the anti-CSG movement in the Northern Rivers for the last two years.

Lindsay Moffatt says he observed first hand the effort Ian Gaillard was going to on a daily basis to fight for a cause he believed in.

"I would hear his phone going off all day and it would be either a farmer, a scientist or a researcher or politician," Mr Moffatt said.

"He's constantly mediating and I thought who better to paint when the premise of the prise is someone who has made the northern rivers a better place or inspired you to live better."

Mr Moffatt painted Ian Gaillard using the old Italian lighting technique, called chiaroscuro.

It was traditionally used to depict religious icons, royalty or the nobles of the time.

While Mr Gaillard doesn't come from nobility, Lindsay says it's a play on irony as his actions are what's noble.

Ian Gaillard was born in Holland and moved to New Zealand as a child.

"Mum and dad saw the writing on the wall in Europe and saw that it was betting harder and harder for kids to have any freedom and so they took my sister and I to New Zealand to experience some of the freedom and slower pace of life that mum new about."

It wasn't until he was in his early 20's that Ian moved to Australia.

"I came here to do a meditation retreat with ex CIA agent John Coleman."

He's a builder by trade, but Ian's managed to fit many other careers into his life.

"I was a youth worker in Lismore and worked for the Attorney Generals Department and done many other projects.

"But having some tools, I've managed to feed my kids and keep myself alive over the years and have always come back to it."

While he's renowned for his anti-CSG stance, it's not the first time Ian's fought for what he believes in.

He says he's been an activists since he was a child.

"I painted a 'ban the bomb' sign on my mother's incinerator when the French were blowing up nuclear weapons in Mururoa and later on in my life I actually went there on a boat."

"Yeas I've done a few things I've felt I needed to do because of what was going on in my life and my friends around me.

"As Margaret Meed said, changes happen through a small group of committed people but it's a matter of taking action," Ian Gaillard said.

"The number of things that have changed due to direct action, be it the suffragette movement where women wanted to vote and got out there or be it through looking after our forests or people looking after young people and that they are getting a fair."