Self Portrait with Brush and Pictorial Device

Self Portrait with Brush and Pictorial Device - oil on canvas - 24"x18" - NFS

Over the past few weeks I have been interested in returning to the 'self portrait'.

It has been a very inwardly rewarding experience, while at the same time allowing me the freedom to experiment with my growing appreciation for application and gesture.

I have spent time gathering images together of the many self portraits I have created over the years and look forward to share them along with some of the remembered emotions I felt while creating them with you soon.

Self Portraits can convey an emotive power of presence reaching beyond the confines of the canvas. They tell stories of time and timelessness. The methodology inherent in self portraits continues to employ and capture for me, the sublime fleeting moment. My continued method of painting 'from life' frees me from the sobering detachment of mechanical means of recording, and requires me to race and work fast which suits my personality. Hand, Eye, Heart, as David Hockney puts it!

This fluid piece was created in one session, with one brush.

I enjoy in it, the abstractions, paint surface and treatment, which I feel consistently shifts from image to paint, and paint to surface. The brush work is cursive yet powerful - plunging you and me into the realm of immediacy.