"Big Self-Portrait" Chuck Close |
Photorealist painting of the 1970s celebrated the glossy, mirror-like "look" of the photograph, but after achieving that ideal, Close swiftly turned to portraiture, suggesting it as a means for exploring unsettling aspects of how self identity is always a composite and highly constructed, if not ultimately conflicted fiction.Close has worked with oil and acrylic painting, photography, mezzotint printing, and various additional media. Shifting confidently from one to the other, Close suggests that his conceptual intentions are ultimately timeless, whereas his tools or materials are infinitely interchangeable. This is partly why Close's practice of portrait painting has for over forty years remained surprisingly "contemporary," even while the larger movement of Photorealism, his earliest chosen stylistic idiom, has long receded into history.
With my this portrait of myself, I knew I wanted to change how I approached painting it. When researching artists who painted in black and white, I found the artist Chuck Close who was an artist who takes pictures and turns them into paintings. The one painting I was really inspired by was Close's first self-portrait of himself which was made in black and white. The idea of making my second self-portrait in black and white tied into the whole idea of my series "COLORS". How I would tie doing a painting in black and white relates to the idea that before I had met all the people who (in a sense) brought color into my life, my life, my attitude, basically everything about myself was dull and not in anyway colorful. This portrait would represent the mindset I had during the beginning of this year and for the past two years. However, I know that for this portrait I will use a recent photo of myself which will contradict the idea of showing the audience who I was two years ago but this is what I know I want to do. The reason why I am using a recent picture of myself is because I want to show that even though through my appearance and how I act, deep down I still at times keep that same mindset; confused, unaware and without color. |