Self Portraiture: The Exploration, The Limits

I'm loving that the Talisman Project has made me search out info and reflect a little more on the variety of meaning and motivations behind self portraiture, not to mention variety of approach. (The four images I've included are all self portraits that I've done in the last two months.)

In the early stages of browsing on the topic, I found this site which I thought was a great source of information on the history and variety of approach to painting the self. Feel free to read it if or when you have the time, but here is what really stuck with me:

"All of these artists gazed into their mirrors and attempted to grasp their identities. They sought to portray their image, whether it showed a clear representation of their features, a walk through their childhood or an outpouring of emotions. Some self-portraits show only what the artist wants us to see, some chronicle the history of the artist, others reveal personal secrets and a sense of isolation. Whichever method is employed each artist took a long literal and figurative look at him/herself. Each portrait is an exploration of the self."

Another day, I was browsing through the Finalists for a Portrait Competition; there is a wealth of absolutely moving work and artist statements. I really loved this part of one artist statement:

"My paintings acknowledge the impossibility of ever fully defining a person in an image. Portraiture reveals as much about the sitter as it exposes the authors fantasies and judgments."

I thought it was a great reminder that we don't need to feel that our self portraits must contain our WHOLE LIFE, our WHOLE STORY. There is release in this; I find that sometimes I let this idea of the perfect image stop me from making one at all. I want it to contain everything, to say everything about me perfectly, when this is not possible or really even necessary.

Sometimes the self portrait is your disheveled head in the morning before you've had your coffee, and sometimes it is a representation of a profound event in your life. But both are you, and both are valuable.