Last week I felt compelled to do something I do about once every 10 years or so I made a self portrait. There is an idea rumbling on in my sketch book to do with fragmentation and self image and this was a kind of beginning/exercise to get into the ideas and see what came out of a traditional-ish self portrait. I have been monoprinting a lot so I did it as a monoprint. The result disturbed me I was having a bad week anyway. When my partner saw it he looked at me suspiciously and said what made you do that. Good question I thought. The fact it was a print made it disturbing, with a painting I would have gone back in corrected the fact that the eyes are doing different things tidied it up tried to make it better or just painted over it. I painted the plate and choose the point to stop and make the print; I don’t like to retouch my mono prints so that was that. Also because it was painted from the mirror then mirrored back in the print it’s a view of self I am not used to. It may or may not have palace in the work I am hoping to do but I wonder if the fact it disturbed me so much made it successful on some level.
The mono print made me think about how I wanted to be seen. I like a lot of people hate to have my photo taken but I found one I quite liked and played with it against the print. In the photo I was happy I had just been sketching and the rain had come and washed it all away. Although the sketch was lost it had been one of those precious moment s of joy and connection. That was how I wanted to be seen.
I include an image this is likely to be the only place it’s ever seen!
