I wrote this within an hour of finishing (mostly) this. I wanted to capture my intitial thoughts and response and as a consequense reads like a journal entry.
We just finished watching the 3 part Frida Kahlo documentary on BBC last night. Not that it inspired me, but it was in my mind while starting. I'm somewhat used to having my photo taken wearing our garments. 'Dressing up'. How do I want to present these shirts? What do they pair with? Etc. Like the Kahlo self-portraits. How do I want to present myself? There's the possibility to present whatever / however / whoever I want. I suppose even with a straight deadpan expressionless face I'm still choosing to present something to the world. This is me. Unavoidable.
There's something permanent and personal, I'm trying to figure out why. It's a mirror image of me, it's what I see, not what everyone else sees. Even though in the final painting others can still see it's me. In a purer sense, I feel I can say this is how I see myself. But others would still see their version of me in my portrait.
There's a point in the process where I found me, it looked like me. It was emotional. The history of people who have made self-portraits. Recognizing myself. I haven’t digested this part properly yet. I took a break halfway through and it didn't have me yet. I covered the eyes and it did. How strange, but maybe expected? Maybe not something I'll do regularly, without stepping into wearing costumes I don't know what else doing it again soon would bring. It does open up having others sit for me though. That would be an interesting process, with some of the same questions but not all. This is how I see you.
It was a fun experience mechanically. Which is probably enough of a reason to do it again soon.
It's been two days since I wrote this. There is still something now unresolved in the wake of doing this self portrait. It's going to have an impact on all my work from here on out, I don't know how, I just know the feeling of it doing so. The next flight of stairs.
You can see the scan of the final work here
