SELF-PORTRAITS

I think all my work, I could say all art, is a form of self-portraiture, springing from any one unique individual. In the 1980s I was doing realistic oil paintings, sometimes including my own figure, then in the 1990s I made wall-sized photocopy enlargements of my genitals. My later abstract work, from the 2000s, is equally self-referential, applying my philosophy of freedom through discipline, by producing work within chosen constraints of symmetry and carbon mediums. This practice of working with limitations opened the door to everything that I have done since, from the small "symmetrical procedure" drawings to the charcoal fingerprint murals, and employing photocopy again with its carbon-based toner, as well as returning to the figure with its inherent symmetry. These Crazy Crone drawings, from 2025, are mixed media, combining blind contour and observational drawing with carbon-based photocopy, collaged together to become whole, as a metaphor for the search for selfhood. Historically, "crones" are the keepers of accumlated wisdom.