Monday, December 9, 10:00am – 1:30pm, Owen Hall 203 and via Zoom
Desmond Killian
The self-portrait is a time-honored tradition among artists. For centuries, artists have been painting themselves in an attempt to immortalize their faces and the emotional turmoil within. The self-portrait has been used to map the far reaches of artistic and human identity. It is a medium that has always been on the cutting edge of self-expression. Each subsequent generation of artist redefines what a self-portrait is and is not. Relevant works by Albrecht Durer, Rembrandt van Rijn, Lucian Freud, Ernst Kirchner, Max Beckmann, Lovis Corinth, and Francis Bacon inform the development of the self-portrait as a medium of art and an expression of identity. These artistic influences coalesce into a new understanding of what a self-portrait can be: a yardstick for the growth of the artist, an acute insight into the human condition and how the artist experiences it, and a medium that breaks through the formalities of what is and is not the “self” as is traditionally understood.