Self-Portrait(s)

When it comes to my work, typically when a figure is involved, I use myself as a model. If I need to figure out how a hand would look in a certain position I will look at my own hand to try and figure this out. If I need to figure out how features look on a face at a certain perspective I might take a picture and sketch it to understand that point of view better. Normally these “self-portraits” are just for sketch purpose and never would see the light of day besides if I, or someone else happens to be flipping through my sketchbook.

In High School we had to do a handful of self-portraits in some of my art classes. I wasn’t particularly fond of doing self-portraits back then. I think It had something to do with the fact that I was in the infancy of trying to find the path I wanted to go down in art. I hadn’t really figured myself out yet and just didn’t feel comfortable doing self-portraits. I did them anyway though, like everyone else had to. It wasn’t until taking an art history course, where I was introduced to self-portraits by Renaissance artists, such as Rembrandt and Van Eyck, that I saw an interest in them myself. Granted that interest wasn’t fully sparked until art history classes at MIAD.

An artist that has peaked my interested since I found out about him is Albrecht Durer. It was Durer’s work that inspired me to take printmaking classes, and basically set me down the path I’m on currently. His self-portrait work is incredible, whether it’s charcoal drawings or paintings. The work is phenomenal.

This semester self-portraits have been nearly 100% of the work I have been producing. Much of the time I find myself questioning the idea of a portrait. What feature about us, besides our faces, can be depicted and considered to be a portrait. I have been playing around with the idea of depicting hands and calling that a self-portrait.