“Self-Portrait 01” (2023)

Oil Painting

16” x 30”

Traditional self-portraits have long terrified me. I found the amount of responsibility one has over the way one is portrayed, and often remembered, intimidating. The raw emotional expression through color and shape scared me away for years. However, I decided to paint a traditional self-portrait for the first time in oil paint and was immediately struck by the power I had in displaying my true self. I depicted someone who occasionally had their head in the clouds, in this case, a stormy sky swirling around an emotionally ambiguous face. After the initial stages of the portrait, I started to love the process and had a hard time deciding when to stop. I titled this piece Self-Portrait 01 because I knew that while it was my first official portrait, it would certainly not be my last.