Vincent Fantauzzo's Heath.

It was never meant to be the last portrait of Heath Ledger, but Vincent Fantauzzo's striking painting Heath seems a fitting final study of a man with many demons.

Painted for the Archibald Prize, a prestigious annual portrait competition held at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, the work depicts a brooding Ledger, shadowed on either side by two ghosts of himself, half-smirking, mischevious, and whispering through cupped hands into his ears.

The sombre image of a tattooed, tousle-haired Ledger, staring a some undefined point in the distance, took on a new significance when the Australian actor died from an accidental overdose of prescription drugs last month. He was reportedly suffering from depression and insomnia.

In the painting the central image of Ledger almost appears to be half-asleep, his eyes are heavy, surrounded by dark circles, and he seems defeated, as if he was aching for the good night's rest that he died trying to find.

Ledger first sat for the painting in December last year, while he was on holiday in his home town of Perth.

Fantauzzo described Ledger's mother bringing the pair coffee and pancakes during the sitting. The actor seemed relaxed and happy and there was a homely air in the house, he said.

Fantauzzo told the Australian Daily Telegraph that the whispering in the painting represented Ledger's inner thoughts which, as a private man, he was inclined to withhold.

"I guess it's the whispering, the voices, the frustration or something comical - all the different ways that we might be thinking in our own mind," he said.

Like all Archibald entries, Ledger signed the portrait before he flew back to America. He died less than one month later, alone in a New York loft.

The Archibald Prize winner will be announced on March 7th.