Self-Portrait

One self-portrait, reworked for more than fifteen years. It began as a pencil drawing of a figure with its skin taken away. On canvas it started blue, then became red muscle on a blue ground, then skin on purple, then blank-eyed, then warm and gold. Every version is the same figure, front on, from the head to the hips, with the arms down. I kept the 2010 photographs in a folder called Self Portrait Horstory.

Above is the painting in January 2023, with me beside it.

2007: the drawing

A pencil drawing of a standing figure without skin, every muscle of the chest, arms and stomach drawn in, the arms hanging at the sides. — The drawing, from a 2007 sketchbook, photographed in May 2012.

2009: the first layer

The first layer on the canvas was the figure painted entirely in blue on a cream ground, photographed on 6 February 2009. Every later version is painted over it.

The figure painted in a single blue, bare-chested from the head to the hips, on a plain cream canvas. — 6 February 2009.

2010: without skin

By November 2010 it was the drawing in colour: the muscles of the torso, shoulders and arms laid bare in red, on a swirling blue ground scattered with points of light. I photographed it finished on 18 November 2010, in daylight and under a lamp.

The flayed figure in red on the swirling blue ground. — A composite of several exposures, 18 November 2010.

A single straight exposure, closer to the true colour.

The canvas hanging on a wall beside a doorway.

The painting under warm lamplight, the red turned to orange.

31 December 2010: painted over

Six weeks later the muscle was gone. The figure was covered in a flat flesh colour, the face was left blank, and the blue ground had been painted purple.

The painting on an easel in a room with shelves, the figure in flat flesh tones with no face, on purple.

January 2011: skin and a face

A month after that the figure had a face, short grey hair and pale skin, on a purple ground flecked with stars. I photographed it on 30 January 2011. The stomach was still blocked in.

The head and shoulders, the face finished, one eye half closed.

The whole painting, bare torso to the hips on the starry purple ground.

The face while it was still being worked, the highlights laid on in white.

The head under warm light against a dark ground.

Alongside it I made a study of two faces, the painted one and the photograph it came from. Each is cropped to the same frame, then faded into the other and fused.

The painted head, cropped, where the comparison starts.

The reference photograph, cropped to the same frame.

The painting and the photograph fused into one face.

The painted head laid over the reference photograph.

The head overpainted digitally, the eyes finished.

2013: blank eyes

By January 2013 the face had been painted over. The eyes were blank white, the hair greyer, the skin paler, and the stars gone from a flat purple ground. Later that month it hung on the wall by the coat hooks with a strip of wood laid across the eyes.

The figure with blank white eyes on a flat purple ground. — 12 January 2013.

The face close up, the eyes painted out in white.

The painting hung on a white wall beside coat hooks and a bag.

The painting on the wall with a strip of wood across the eyes.

Around 2016: warm

A few years on, the body had turned a warm orange and pink, the hair dark, and gold swirled into the purple ground. The eyes stayed blank. The only photograph of this state is a small one I posted online.

The figure in warm orange and pink, blank eyes, on purple with gold swirls. — Around 2016.

2023: the latest state

In January 2023 the body was finished, with gold worked into the purple ground and the eyes still blank.