"Selfie" - A self portrait

Introduction: The reason to produce self portraits

An artist produces a self portrait to show the world who they truly are, or who is the one producing the artworks. I think that the reason they mainly produce these, is because they are the creators after all, and without them their work wouldn't exist, so they should at least get a little recognition of their appearance. Yet making a self portrait can show a superficial part of us, known as our appearances or a “deeper” part of us, known as our hidden, or “true selves”. Obviously it’s the artist’s choice to choose which one suits more their personality, some are who they show everybody to be, and some are just a living mask.

Anyways, the portrait doesn’t have to be of you, precisely (i mean it should, but it not necessarily is). It can be an object that fully represents you, or a part of your body, or anything that you feel that might describe you.

I would say that eventually a self portrait definitely changes over time, because it’s human nature to change. We don't have an “essence”, because as we grow we learn different things that makes us change constantly ourselves, such as our appearances, personality, thoughts or whatever.

Examples of artists:

Salvador Dali

“ He created a reality from his dreams and subconscious thoughts, thus mentally changing reality to what he wanted it to be and not necessarily what it was. For Dalí, it became a way of life.”

Salvador Dali was a Spanish artist and surrealist icon. He was born on may 11, 1904 and died in 1989 in Figueres, Spain. He painted mostly in oil. The formal aspects of his paintings are: Starting with the structure they usually are curved and dynamic directions. It’s pretty symbolic or better should i say expressive, if you think about it. He uses pretty warm and “saturated” colors, mostly the color orange and gold, but this is not in every painting. There is a superimposition and geometric “space”, but he paints real things or peculiar objects, yet the odd thing about it is he’s perspective towards them…

I mean the figures he paints are like deconstructing or falling apart, melting. The paintings are of intermediate contrast with usually not much light, as he makes them of a time of the day were the light is low, stormy ones, sunset, cloudy and etc.

I consider that a painting doesn't necessarily relate with the historical context, i mean it can have a certain influence but not that much. It depends much more on the person, and the life he/she experienced. So i’ll write a little bit about Salvador Dali’s life to relate it with his paintings.

Salvador Dali had plenty of issues with his father starting at a young age. His mother died, and it didn't do any better. Yet his parents encouraged him to paint and were fascinated by his artworks, so he eventually went to an art school. He was very interested in surrealism, and his clothing and style said so, as they were pretty strange. He was a man that has gone pretty mad over the years, (he’s father was a lawyer and very strict, so being a surrealist person is like the opposite, so it was another way to “defy” his father and act in a way to piss him off), but not really, that’s how he defined himself, he was satisfied with the life he was living, as he once said “Each morning when i awake, I experience again a supreme pleasure, that of being Salvador Dali.” You know why he was so happy?, because he was living his dream, literally, art was his life and he painted dreamy kind of stuff, that’s why when he had a disease in his hands and couldn't express himself anymore, he couldn't produce his dream life and after awhile he died. The only way to make your dreams come true is waking up, but now that his dreams were gone why would he wake up?.

Now I will analyse his art.

Well first of all I would say that the rarest thing is the figures he paints, because they are those kind of images that only appear in dreams. I chose this artist because i think it’s interesting to paint these kind of things, as they are the “unreal” part of our minds, the creative one. I like how he gives it lot of importance in his life, because if we really think about it, half of our lives we are awaken, but the other half we are asleep and dreaming. We tend to think our reality is the one that’s outside our heads, but really, who defines the reality we choose to live in?, in dreams we can do anything, we are more free than we are when we are awake. I feel as if he chose to live “the dreaming life” as his reality and that’s pretty impressive.

The way he paints the curves is pretty playful in a way, it’s a reality with no limits, just like a dream. His paintings aren’t sharp because that’s the idea, as doing curved lines represents confusion, “a go with the flow” attitude, something imprecise, undefined, unpredictable, just as dreams. The color orange represents a “middle” because the first color is light blue, the color of the sky at full daylight, then at sunset which the sky is orange and finally dark blue to black which is night. So the middle color, known as orange is the boundary between being awake and asleep. What we control, and what we don’t. Here I introduce surrealism, Surrealism represents the fantastic, the unreal, the distance between the real and the fictional world. They represent illogical scenes. Sometimes things in life get too weird, clearly dreams are a part of this peculiarity of our lives, but it’s not all of it. Some situations can make us wonder about if we have gone mad or is this real life. This confusion we feel in our acts, the way we behave that we find unnatural, are known as the ideas that haunt our subconscious mind. We can't really tell if it’s controlling us but we know that some information is buried over there and it can do it’s “magic”.

To conclude Salvador Dali’s portrait is a surrealistic image of him, it has his moustache, and also a melting scene (which are in many of his paintings), so these represent him. His portrait seems to be a mask. I think this means that the reality he lives covers the true dream he is in. And it’s melting because slowly as you start believing you live in a certain reality, that mask of fakeness fades away and it leaves you with the one you truly are in. He’s an orange man, as he lives in a boundary between the real and the fantastic. He has a deeper view of the world, not just by the way it is, but by the way it is not...

Rembrandt van Rijn

Rembrandt van Rijn is considered one of the greatest painters in European Art. He was born in 1606 in Leiden, Dutch (now the Netherlands), and died in 1669. He usually painted in oil. He made portraits the most, landscape and narrative paintings (biblical scenes). The formal aspects of his paintings would mostly be with a “dramatic” atmosphere, pretty static images, as if the people were posing (i guess they obviously were). The colors are very realistic and warm. Usually the people are in closed places, such as in their house, but in others he does like if his paintings were telling a story, which involve some sort of action. Though it seems that even when it is on a nature place, such as a lake or ocean, it gives a sensation of being “a closed place”, maybe because he puts a lot of stuff in it, like many trees and people, so you can feel trapped in his own art pieces. He doesn't paint open spaces, such as a wide open blue sky (because in that time of history the truth wasn't wide open, people were trapped in their beliefs that God was the answer to everything, that was the explanation and there was no way out, yet it was on a process of development and illumination). There is contrast in his paintings, mostly in the portraits, between the light and the darkness, they are very dark spaces the ones he puts the people of his portraits in, yet there is always a tiny part of light that illuminates the most important parts of the person, or maybe the one he want to make focus on more.

Basically his history is that when he went to school at an early age he had biblical studies, then he was removed from school and sent to be trained as an artist. He made paintings of religious themes and focused on handling the light and dark on them. His paintings, later, involved his use of light. He created spots of brightness and of deep darkness. At the beginning he started painting religious situations, later on he was interested in landscape and then in portraits.

This painter's artworks are more based on his historical context. in the 1600’s the importance of religion was strong, yet as the years passed by, it’s importance started fading away. During the 17 and 18 century the importance of science started to gain little by little more strength. There were discussions about the limits between God and humans, how in reality, in a “scientific realistic” point of view everything has a rational explanation, leaving the creation of God behind. I guess that the logical intelligence of the people started to lighten up, not totally, obviously, but at least it was a time that began to shape boundaries between religion and science. That’s why this artist started at the beginning with religious themes, and then started with other things, putting a balance between the importance of religion and the bible and what he started to believe during his years of “enlightment”. The darkness of his paintings could represent lack of knowledge, ignorance, people unable to see the truth, which was that everything had a logical explanation. And him presenting some sort of soft light represents that he is in a context of “illumination” and understanding. This is clearly a representation of what people were living that century, a process of ignorance to wisdom.

Gabriel Orozco

"The most important thing is not so much what people see in the gallery or in the museum, but what they see after seeing these things, the way in which they face back to reality"

Gabriel Orozco is a mexican artist that was born in Jalapa, Veracruz the 27 of april of 1962. He usually works alone, maybe with one or two assistants. To create his art he uses techniques that require the usage of objects used on a daily basis. He is a plastic artist who does sculptures, photographs, videos and drawings. The art he produced depended on the materials he had, the context he was in, and the situations he was going through at the moment, and the different public spaces he was in. When he saw a daily- ordinary situation he transformed it into art, into a very unusual and peculiar kind. He said he “rewrites cities”, making the ordinary into spectacular. He doesn’t have a studio as he likes to be free, and he gets the inspiration in any situation, so he must walk and be inspired by the normal life. He is a very special artist as he transforms things that don’t have any value into something full of life and meaning, like with a shoe box. He is very original as he “explores” objects in order to make an artistic use of them.

The formal aspects of this photograph would be that it has a lot of contrast, it has warm colors as it’s a human body, it mostly plays with the light, centered in the body. It’s a “dynamic” picture because it’s a series, i mean one picture tells “a part of the story” and the other, the other one. It’s a pretty symbolic photograph. It’s meaning would be that with the heart of the artist (which are represented by hands), he produces the art. His hands are the tools that allow him to express himself, as with them he can create, and put all of his “heart” and “love” in his artworks.

Elin Engvall

Elin Engvall is a photographer from Sweden and she is 15 years old. This is one of my favourite photographers, I found her photographs in social media, so there isn’t a lot of information about her, plus as she is very young probably she just took a few of photography lessons, anyways I just suppose that. Her “theme” is a very natural one, she uses warm colors, to represent the season of fall. The photographs are mainly of “adventurous” activities, or just natural moments. It's a way to show the appreciation of little moments of life.

The aspects of this particular photograph is that is has warm colors, it’s a pretty darkish picture, it includes nature in it’s background, there is a contrast between the red of her clothes and the green of background, It’s a static image though it gives a feeling of it being dynamic, like if she was moving and somebody took a photo of her, this is due to her natural pose. The atmosphere looks like it’s fall and a stormy, wet day. It’s a calm atmosphere, with only nature at the back with nobody disturbing in the picture. It gives a feeling of maybe “loneliness”, and it looks as if she was in a “story”, as the background is so perfect, and she combines with it. I think that warm colors give a sense of a comfortable place, a warm one, like being at home. It’s a “cozy” color.

Self portrait: (analysis)

The first Photograph, has mainly symbolic meanings. I will describe the formal aspects first.

To begin, this picture is blurry, which i will explain later why. It’s a static image, as it’s a portrait, though it kind of contradicts the meaning of the photograph…

It’s has a pretty atmospheric theme, mainly a dark, mysterious one. It’s obviously realistic, as it’s me, a real person, and it contains warm colors, and neutral ones, such as brown. It plays with the darkness and light and the “high contrast” between them.

The symbolic meaning of this picture has to do more with a “general” concept, rather than an individual one. What I mean by this is that, a self portrait must talk about yourself, but I show a way that I see life, and most people do.

First of all the picture is a dark and blurry one to represent that I am undefined, my “essence” is not clearly formed yet, I can’t really describe who I am because I change constantly, that’s the contradiction with it being a static image, when my personality is in a changing and moving process constantly. The blur represents the undefined and the darkness the unknown, that’s how I see myself, (I don’t know what’s yet to come, or who will I end up being), and the light that comes from the corner is a representation of the knowledge we gain throughout our lives, and the memories we make, and how that’s what influences in our decisions in life, and therefore we change personality, appearances, usually trying to make them better as time passes by. Of course as a person, I am going through that process, yet that doesn’t define who I am or will be.

This photograph is the “most important” one, as it clearly shows how I see myself and life.

This second photograph has kind of a similar significance than the first one. Even though it has differences, other than the formal aspects, would be that it means that even though I’m a pretty unclear person, and I don’t really know who I am, or what I would do in different kind of situations (my reactions), I have had clear moments of my life were my personality was pretty defined for a while, and I have had “enlightenment” processes, I mean I have learned many things which have made me a “better” person, yet there is so much I don’t know, and that’s the role that the darkness plays on this picture.

Anyways, I also use these warm colors colors because I just like them, I don’t really like the light, I mean “growing” up and knowing more things (light, means knowledge, seeing things clearly as they are), I would like to stay the way I am forever, I like traditions and things that don’t involve change. Because once that change happens the old situations never come back, that’s why I am a pretty nostalgic person.

The formal aspects of this picture would be a more defined one, it doesn't involve the usage of blur, and it plays with darkness and light and high contrast between them. It’s also a static image and it has symbolic meanings, and it’s a very atmospheric one, as it shows darkness and mystery.

Finally this last photograph is very different from the other two. The picture requires also a symbolic meaning, though I will describe the formal aspects first: It's a picture with a lot of light and contrast and a static one too. It has a perfectly vertical direction in the corner which is a part of the curtain, It uses mostly cool tones of color such as blue which represents a “colorful” part of the picture. The picture due to it’s “formality” doesn’t really look symbolic or expressive, at least how I see it, yet it does have a meaningful description of my personality.

The symbolic meaning of this photo is one that mainly shows “perfectionism” and a “tidy” kind of personality. I would say this because the background is pure light, with no "imperfections", and the straight line in the corner represents that too, it shows symmetry and perfection. I think that the transparency of the blue shirt also gives a feeling of something “subtle” or “delicate”. That transparency shows a lot of “me” because i’m a pretty truthful person, I mean what you see is what you get, in some aspects. I don’t hide my feelings or any parts of me except my behavior sometimes. This picture also shows my “perfectionist” part of me, this means I want everything to be perfect, tidy and clean. I am a pretty obsessive person in that aspect, of course It can be absolutely great in some ways and absolutely annoying in others. I mean it makes me do things in a “pretty perfect” way, all neat and tidy, yet it has some consequences, negative ones which means that if things don’t look the way I expected it, it torments me. That’s why i’m not smiling in the picture, even though the photo is all nice and “correctly” done, I don’t seem "that happy".