Self-Portraits In Still Life

"Plum, Silver Creamer, Red Napkin" Oil on panel, 5x5 inches, 2021 (Prints are available)
“Plum, Silver Creamer, Red Napkin”
Oil on panel, 5×5 inches, 2021 (Prints are available)

I’m not a portrait painter, and I never will be.

I’ve done a few, and they were all disappointments. There’s just something about the process of painting people that doesn’t connect with me – it felt forced and unnatural, gave little pleasure, and caused much anxiety.

It is what it is – my calling is with painting still life.

Still, I often place myself into my paintings like I did with the one above.

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These aren’t true self portraits. They’re not meant to be identifiable as me – sometimes they’re just enough flicks of paint to barely suggest a person.

They’re more like characters in a movie who are mostly silent and just observe – which is almost all a painter does anyway.

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They’re also a reminder that these paintings are hand-crafted artifacts in a mass production world – the product of one person and one point of view, literally and figuratively.

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This isn’t anything new or original. Artists have been painting themselves into their creations for a long time. Here is one of my favorites, from the Dutch still life painter Pieter Claesz:

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I finish between 1 and 4 paintings every month, and show them to my subscribers first.  

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