Artist Statement - 2006

'self-portrait' in the lounge room, bateman (June 2006)


' Portraiture is fictional, and we can choose to reveal ourselves in any form that we wish '
Irit Krygier


In post-photography, we have entered into a new era of image literacy where the human subject is something to be constantly created. Self Portrait (2006) is a digital composite image that explores the artifice of photography and the effects digital technology has had on the human subject in postmodernity. Since the invention of the camera in Nineteenth century Modernity, the photographic image was believed to document objective “truths” about the world, and “capture or reveal ‘the inner being’, the personality… or ‘soul’ of the subject” (Ewing 1). Ironically, in Twenty-First century Postmodernity, there has been a shift in this “truth” effect, and the belief that images can reveal the soul has been dismissed. According to contemporary theorist Jean Baudrillard, there is no system of representation or analysis, which can refer to reality “truthfully”. Images have the ability to impose themselves between reality and fantasy (Horrocks 109). Post- photography uses banality, it recontextualises images and deconstructs the myth of photography by exposing self-contradiction, arbitrariness and the constructed origin of “truth”. According to Baudrillard “we live everywhere already in an ‘aesthetic’ hallucination of reality” (Krygier 1). By challenging the modernist notion of truth and authenticity of the photographic image, Self-portrait explores the process of photographic representation freed from the responsibility of indexing reality. Through digital intervention, Self-portrait critiques one of the most important inventions of modern times - the subject and opens up the possibilities for creative work.

As a photographic artist constantly faced with the hyper real world of simulacra, I have created Self-portrait on the premise that photographic images mask reality and therefore can never claim to retain the vast complexity of the human subject. Self-portrait portrays the human subject as an entity that is constantly shifting and changing. Here the body is malleable, and can be changed according to my creative desires. Through movement and utilising slow shutter speed, the reflection of the subjects face appears fragmented, blurred and fluid, rather than a fixed object. Furthermore, the subject appears fragmented by the use of a mirror reflection. In modernity, mirrors were the first form of self-reflection available at the time. It was believed that mirrors “reveal[ed] the symbolic self outside the physical self. [Here] the symbolic self is suddenly explicit, public [and] vulnerable” (Ewing 2). Self-portrait critiques this notion by the montage of two digital images that are seamlessly merged into one by means of electronic manipulation. Here the images are recontextualised so they appear fictitious and ironic. In one image the subject is pictured holding a mirror, whilst in the other a blurred reflection of the subjects face haunts the same mirror frame. Although the reflection appears “real”, it is actually a separate image of the self, digitally assembled as a composite. Here, the subject appears fragmented, self-reflexive and overtly simulated. The blurring of the face suggests that mirrors are not an objective viewing experience because the self is constantly torn between mis-recognition and recognition. By simulating my reflection within the mirror frame, I am problemitising the notion that images reflect an objective reality and provide us with insight into our subjectivity.

Self-portrait celebrates the virtual and illusionary world of simulacra. Rather than conforming to the rigid forms of realism, Self-portrait openly admits it is a simulation of the self and demonstrates how post-photographic images of the human subject are only limited by creativity and imagination.


Works Cited


Ewing, William A. About Face: Photography and the death of the portrait. London: Hayward Gallery Pub. 2004.

Horrocks, C; Jevtic, Z. Baudrillard for Beginners. Australia: Icon Books Ltd. 1996.

Krygier, Irit. “The Unreal Person, Portraiture in the Digital Age”. [Unknown]. Striking Distance. 31 May.2006.
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