In the Self-Portraits, I occupy the role of Celebrity, Victim, and/ or Perpetrator, yet am always “Myself”. In addition to mugshots and family snapshots, the personages that I base the Self-Portraits on are primarily inspired by photographs of political assassinations, drug-addicted babies, child soldiers, cannibal-dictators, "rape fantasy" pornography, conjoined twins and confused psychotherapists. In short, these are all very different people with varying handicaps who nonetheless are under duress and at major transitional stages in their lives.

 

After drawing onto paper with watercolor pencils or ballpoint pens, saliva is painted onto the image, causing the pigment to blend together, adding greater detail and dimension. Fluid is transferred to paper with cotton swabs, a method that purposely references the tools and techniques employed by forensic scientists and police officers to locate the identity of a perpetrator or victim. Sometimes spitting (an action which represents a viewer's emotional response at viewing a criminal) directly onto the paper is used to add my genetic code to the drawings

 

Genetics, (Mis)Representation and Crime are at the core of the Self-Portraits; my face is merely a conduit for these themes to be expressed.

 

The purposely bland, matter-of-fact titles are used to emphasize the gallows humor that runs throughout the works.

 

A main goal is to make a self-portrait that, although caricatured and partially-based on a stranger's image, is truthful in depicting emotional states that are shared - and therefore felt and understood - by everyone.

 

DETAIL OF

SELF-PORTRAIT AS A THERAPIST (I)