My aim was to produce a self portrait ripping itself apart through loosely connected heads. After investigating Gogh’s use of distorted brush stroked in his oil painting, I noticed the presence of continual distortions in the world around me: sound waves, water, and the mind. I began exploring how distortion in the self can be manifested through the visual language. A specific type of distortion, mitosis, had a prominent impact on my work. Especially, the exact moment cells are in the process of dividing and stretch out from each other while still being connected. Mitosis is also thematically significant as it can refer to birth, evolution, development and carbon based life as a whole.

The three heads represent a lack of identity, a fragmented self. In the piece, I utilized facial distortion to mimic fast paced movements. The three heads are connected through elastic skin, which can ressemble blurred fast movements. Furthermore, the three heads represent the past, present and future, each look in their respective direction dictated by western norms. Time is illustrated as a timeline where the past is behind, present is the current and the future is ahead, propagates the idea of its linearity. However, this can be argued to be a human construct. By all the three heads being connected, the continuity and unity of time is symbolized. This suggests how time moves through us and we do not move through time.

Furthermore, the number “three” of heads are a reference to the holy trinity or the three headed dog Cerberus protecting the gates of hell. These religious connotations suggest that only the divine do not feel the effect of time. This is contrasted with the flesh toned color palette referencing human life and mortality. Human skin is elastic due to the presence of melatonin. Without this, it turns soggy. My Self Portrait can thus present a parallel to time, whose absence leads to aging. The beauty ideal dictates that only youthfulness leads to a pretty face. However here, wrinkles are uncovered as pretty.

This introspective piece speaks to my own detachment. My face is present in 3 locations, illustrating my lack of identity, and personalities multifaceted nature.