"Shattered Perception"
(collage painting on cardboard, 36X48, 2007)
"I paint objects as I think them, not as I see them."
Pablo Picasso
"Are we to paint what's on the face, what's inside the face, or what's behind it?"
Pablo Picasso
I feel that I'm a monumentalist at heart. I know that bigger doesn't necessarily means better, but there is just something mesmerizing about painting a large surface and seeing you ideas come to life on a grand scale. "Shattered Perception" is my largest self-portrait thus far.
At first I was unsure of my motives for painting it. Magnifying your own face to the size of an open umbrella might seem a bit narcissistic, however I didn't paint it to preserve my mug for posterity. I painted it because I wanted to take a snapshot of who I was as of that moment in my life. When I'm older and loosing my memory I'll be able to look at this self-portrait and (hopefully) remember who I was when I was young. Or course, a better scenario would be for my portrait to age like the picture of Dorian Gray and for me to stay young forever.
