I want to treat myself as a third party, to look at myself from a distance
to see what I am made of like what my gestures and existence is so maybe
I can find out who I am…..
David Wojnarowicz, Fire in the Belly, by Cynthia Carr
From August 2017 through June 2018, I made self-portraits on an iPad. Using the Procreate app and working loosely with various media, I based each image on a single photograph. Over time, I came to understand that, though no one work would tell all, the images as a body could mirror a self living on many levels.
I see a woman who is calm, curious, amused, vulnerable and clear. She is also brooding, wary, irritable and disoriented. Her face and neck are wrinkled, like her mother’s. Her mouth is thin, her nose large like her father’s. There is a certain intelligence in her eyes, even as they change color behind thick glasses. She tries on blue-violet hair or no hair at all. She ages and grows younger. Her faces show glimpses of androgyny, other races, other eras.
Art teaches that we are not static, nor are our perceptions of ourselves static. We are fluid, changing. May we be fortunate enough to pay attention.