Encompassing works created over the past 80 years, this selection of portraits from the Gallery’s collection celebrates inventiveness and diversity in approaches to self portraiture. Figurative, abstracted or allusive, the 35 works displayed here employ multiple methods and techniques – digital media, needlework, welding, printing, collage and calligraphy among them. Yet each of them is characterised by the artist’s incessant desire to create, and demonstrates the longevity of the practice of defining creative style and artistic vision through the scrutinisation of self.
Whether through fluid, gestural lines, a more painterly approach, or via intricate, brightly coloured soft sculptures, these self portraits highlight the individuality of expression characteristic to each artist. Through the parallel exploration of medium and the self, artists document personal histories and stories alongside the development of individual artistic practice. Self portraits thereby enable access to an artist’s inner world, while also revealing the intricacies of the connection between personal identity and creative expression.
