Self- Portrait Proposal

                To be candid, I’m a bit unsure how I should go about this portrait. I want to find a way to survey myself without being self-serving. Find a means to be self-aware, but not self-conscious. It’s funny how often we tend to be so divided, so dually self-gratifying and self-effacing. I certainly don’t want to celebrate myself, if fact I’m not sure if I truly could. If I can, I would like to find a way to survey myself, but without glorifying or memorializing my image in any way. I would be better if I reflect, better yet, refract my image. These certainly pose some restrictions, but I think that setting boundaries will be a good means a discovering some new avenue to portraying myself. To paint a portrait that both eschews my image, but also refracts it in some way

                Already I’m becoming too pretentious or conceptual in this design!

                So…. How should I approach this? How can I authenticate myself, without distorting or pandering to my own image? Where can I find an honesty as I paint my portrait?

                Eyes…

                But not my own. Consider this… How do we communicate with one another, without speaking? When looking and receiving one another, what signals our reactions and carries our responses? Can we read reactions and response in the faces of others?

                Of course, of course.

                Okay, so with that in mind here is what I aim to do. We need to paint a portrait of ourselves, that much is given. And I want to do so without necessarily showing my own image. But maybe I can elicit and receive some essence of myself through the faces of others. Perhaps through the eyes, the mouth, the cheeks, eyebrows, the ears, nose, chin…. through everything of the visage, I may find some refraction of myself. If all goes well, I want to define myself through the outlook of others.

                Think it about for a moment. Surely we all seek appraisal and approval from others, both those close and disparate. Surely we sanctify and contextualize ourselves through the responses of others. Well, this is what I want to do. I’m seeking some sense of honesty. I want to be stripped down, surveyed, judged by the facial responses of those around me. I find this an honest means of painting my own portrait. Presenting a tableau of photographic stills, focusing purely on the faces of others, as they look at me, and speak back with their eyes and gestures.

Through this approach I seek to find a portrait of myself. An array of evaluations and from the faces of others as they inspect, survey, respond, react, and paint their own isolated portrait of who I am to them, and what I mean to those around me. For better or worse.

                To be candid, I’m a bit unsure how I should go about this portrait. I want to find a way to survey myself without being self-serving. Find a means to be self-aware, but not self-conscious. It’s funny how often we tend to be so divided, so dually self-gratifying and self-effacing. I certainly don’t want to celebrate myself, if fact I’m not sure if I truly could. If I can, I would like to find a way to survey myself, but without glorifying or memorializing my image in any way. I would be better if I reflect, better yet, refract my image. These certainly pose some restrictions, but I think that setting boundaries will be a good means a discovering some new avenue to portraying myself. To paint a portrait that both eschews my image, but also refracts it in some way

                Already I’m becoming too pretentious or conceptual in this design!

                So…. How should I approach this? How can I authenticate myself, without distorting or pandering to my own image? Where can I find an honesty as I paint my portrait?

                Eyes…

                But not my own. Consider this… How do we communicate with one another, without speaking? When looking and receiving one another, what signals our reactions and carries our responses? Can we read reactions and response in the faces of others?

                Of course, of course.

                Okay, so with that in mind here is what I aim to do. We need to paint a portrait of ourselves, that much is given. And I want to do so without necessarily showing my own image. But maybe I can elicit and receive some essence of myself through the faces of others. Perhaps through the eyes, the mouth, the cheeks, eyebrows, the ears, nose, chin…. through everything of the visage, I may find some refraction of myself. If all goes well, I want to define myself through the outlook of others.

                Think it about for a moment. Surely we all seek appraisal and approval from others, both those close and disparate. Surely we sanctify and contextualize ourselves through the responses of others. Well, this is what I want to do. I’m seeking some sense of honesty. I want to be stripped down, surveyed, judged by the facial responses of those around me. I find this an honest means of painting my own portrait. Presenting a tableau of photographic stills, focusing purely on the faces of others, as they look at me, and speak back with their eyes and gestures.

Through this approach I seek to find a portrait of myself. An array of evaluations and from the faces of others as they inspect, survey, respond, react, and paint their own isolated portrait of who I am to them, and what I mean to those around me. For better or worse.