selfportrait on the mirror

Self portrait on the mirror

2006

video, video-installation, dvd color sound + oil on mirror

5' 26"

This is a self portrait from which I have eliminated a step- the moment which an artist usually uses to reflect and analyze, opening a space between the subject and the canvas.The self portrait is a genre with three fixed roles which engage the artist, the mirror and the canvas:  the artist as both painter and subject and the canvas as a copy of the mirror image.However, here we have only two of these coordinates- the artist and the mirror. In this way, the painting grows onto the image, increasingly eliminating the reflected image and providing space for the memory.

The reason for this is because the artwork is regarded as a video and not as an extemporary performance, for the video offers a defined visual impact and, because of its ‘authority’, represents the symbolic ‘public eye’. From my own visual perspective, it seems that I am making myself up, falsifying the truth of my face. And this is indeed true, because I am recreating my image while it has been covered little by little beneath the action of the brush.