Self Portrait Assignment
The Art of Constructing a Self-Portrait
A
self-portrait comes from within. Injecting 'those we love' into the
portrait steers one away from the harder task to trying to reveal self
without adornment.
If you eat, sleep, and live for speed then your self-portrait should reflect motion and movement as one of its cornerstones.
If you are a reflective type, then reflections and patterns and their intersections should occupy a primary space.
If
overall you feel more flawed then whole, then you wouldn't want to go
about photographing the most pristine parts of yourself; you would want,
instead, to capture your essence in a manner that describes and defines
you without complaining. I say that because the essence of
self-discovery requires you to be a benign observer of self so as not to
hone in too closely on this or that part.
A
sense of 'wholeness' is difficult to capture at best. Indeed, wholeness
is almost impossible for some people to even understand -- let alone
capture in themselves -- because their persons and their lives are so
fragmented, so disorganized in general.
But that is what self-portraiture is all about, capturing the whole -- the whole of who you are as a person.
Try
to be unforgiving in a benign and neutral way. Study yourself in the
mirror and paint what you see there. Then go inside yourself and paint
what you see there."
