I visited the National Portrait Gallery to see an exhibition of self-portraits by women artists and was surprised to be disappointed by the conventionality of their approach. Self-portraits of artists are made from a mirror image and are about the outside appearance of the person. I wondered if an artist should or would be able to paint themselves from ‘the inside’.
This painting is both about the ‘role’ of the artist and my fantasy about myself as an artist. In the painting I return to favourite themes such as the kopjie (large hill) on my father’s farm and the journey on an African road with a rainstorm in the distance. There is a star map on a wall that doesn’t exist and a door that is bricked up with some 1998 graffiti painted onto it. I am a ‘former member of the underworld’. There is also a genderless yellow figure that serves me for a spirit symbol. I have a monstrous foot that is scaly like a crocodile that is perhaps a symbol for the duality of human nature. At my other foot is an open Pandora’s box. There is also the candle that Psyche used when she wanted to see Cupid. I of course have a mobile phone and a computer. I am gesturing towards the other paintings in the gallery.