The look that looks at itself
I’ve painted one or two self-portraits in my short time as an artist. Okay, the number is closer to twenty in the last eight years. Clearly, the self-portrait is something I enjoy! I feel freer to do a certain kind of learning with my own face rather than with someone else’s.
Adding significantly to the tally is the fact that I include a self-portrait in each one of my conceptual series as a way of acknowledging my biases in the work and anchoring the series in my own experience.
Gwenn Seemel
Self-portrait
1997
acrylic on canvas board
14 x 18 inches
I painted this self-portrait for a Continuing Education painting class at the PNCA when I was sixteen. Until this piece, I had completed just one painting in acrylic: a rather unconvincing copy of Van Gogh’s Starry Night 1888 for a project in a high school French class when I was fourteen. There’s a certain Van Gogh thickness to the way the paint is applied in this portrait. I’ve since taken to watering down my paints instead of painting in relief.
Gwenn Seemel
Self-portrait
2000
acrylic on printed fabric
24 x 24
I was still at university when I painted this. It was my first painting on stretched material. I painted on a printed fabric wall decoration that my mother had put up in my room when I was a child. The fabric was a bit flimsy to be working on without a backing, but I was hooked!
Gwenn Seemel
My Own Worst Critic
2003
acrylic on canvas
48 x 34 inches
This portrait is part of the series Critics Critiqued. I was putting the final touches on the series, when I realized that I had omitted at least one critic worth putting in the hot seat. I am still my own worst critic…!
Gwenn Seemel
Self-portrait (Hepatica Blossom)
2004
acrylic on canvas
48 x 34 inches
This is how I like to think I am—strong, almost Amazonian!—but my friends tell me I really look more like My Own Worst Critic. Self-portraits: a separate kind of truth!
Gwenn Seemel
Gwenn (Thirty Years)
2004
acrylic on canvas
17 x 11 inches
Part of a group of five portraits I painted for my parents’ thirtieth wedding anniversary: portraits of the whole family, including the dog.
Gwenn Seemel
Artist As News Anchor
2004
acrylic on canvas
36 x 24 inches
This painting is from Snow Days. I cast myself as the narrator, helping the audience access a different side of the trusted strangers whom we invite into our homes every day.
Gwenn Seemel
Gwenn Monkey
2004
acrylic on canvas
19 x 13 inches
This portrait is from the Trickster Project, a series in collaboration with a theater piece.
Gwenn Seemel
Toadstone
2005
acrylic on bird’s eye
11 x 9 inches
I painted this as a palette experiment and a materials experiment.
Gwenn Seemel
Gwenn Seemel (Portrait Artist)
2005
acrylic on canvas
17 x 21 inches
This painting belongs to the series Private Masks. The subjects in this series all work with death on a daily basis, so I almost didn’t include myself in the series. Then it hit me that portraits have everything to do with posterity.
Gwenn Seemel
Contributing Member Of Society
2005
acrylic on canvas
24 x 18 inches
This portrait is part of Public Faces. An artist should be a contributing member of society.
Gwenn Seemel
Delightfully Naive
2006
acrylic on canvas
20 x 20 inches
Part performance art, part traditional portraiture, this piece belongs to Mutually Beneficial.
Gwenn Seemel
Before And After: She Can Call Herself A Woman
2006 and 2007
both acrylic on bird’s eye
34 x 96 inches (together)
This diptych brought together everything I was thinking in Swollen.
Gwenn Seemel
Liberty
2007
acrylic on linen
42 x 19 inches
I painted this self-portrait for Apple Pie.
Gwenn Seemel
This Is Not A Bag (Self-portrait)
2007
acrylic on canvas patchwork bag
13 x 13 inches
This is the first of my portable portraits.
