Artist Gwenn Seemel’s bilingual blog about all the faces she makes while painting faces.

Le blog de l’artiste peintre franco-américaine Gwenn Seemel. Les articles sont en anglais et en français, et souvent ils sont bilingues.

A Somewhat Secret Place

This month, I’m participating in A Somewhat Secret Place.  Curated by artist Catherine JH Miller, the show focuses on disability and its status in art and in society, issues that have become a lot more personal to me since I was diagnosed with a chronic illness in 2009.

My contribution to the show is a self-portrait that I created in 2010, a painting that allowed me to work through some of the difficulties of living with endometriosis.  To make the portrait, I used an old photo of myself, one taken before I had any symptoms of disease.  Originally, I envisioned painting a portrait that would combine aspects of a healthy me with elements of who I had become.  I was looking to create a painting imbued with a kind of sympathetic magic—an image that could act as a touchstone for health for me—but the portrait had other plans.

As I worked, the painting resolutely remained a depiction of me pre-symptoms.  At first, I was disappointed, but as I brought the piece to completion I realized that I was being silly.  I was idealizing a time in my life when I wasn’t sick but also when I wasn’t necessarily any happier than I am now.  Creating the painting helped me to see that while endometriosis has changed my life in a big way it hasn’t actually killed anything important about who I am.

On the days when the disease gets the better of me, I look at Sympathetic Magic and remember that I’m not really any worse off now than I was then: my life is just different.

Gwenn Seemel
Sympathetic Magic (Be A Good Role Model)
2010
acrylic on canvas
17 x 13 inches

For more information about A Somewhat Secret Place, visit its blog or come to the opening tonight!

PRESENTspace
939 NW Glisan
Portland, OR 97209
(entrance on 10th Avenue)

Opening: TONIGHT from 6:30 to 9 PM
Reception: Saturday 9 July beginning at 6:30 PM
Open: 7 through 30 July
Hours: Monday through Saturday from 11 AM to 5 PM

RELATED ARTICLES:
- Between life and death / Entre la vie et la mort
- Searching for my bearings
- Change

CATEGORIES: - Endometriosis - Events - Philosophy -

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