unofficial homage
Self-Portrait, in the style of Francis Bacon (the contemporary artist). Acrylic paint on canvas. 2010
My first, dedicated attempt at a self-portrait (see giant photo above) was for a painting class assignment.
Up until then, I only had a few off-hand attempts at self-portraits.
Compiled: self-portrait sketches. Various mediums. 2010
The assignment prompt:
Create a self-portrait in the style of a contemporary artist of your choice.
Broad, very broad…
And so I Googled, of course, and came across Francis Bacon’s work.
Side Note:
I am talking about Francis Bacon—the artist.
And not Sir Francis Bacon—the guy who helped to develop the scientific method.
Screenshot of Official Webpage:
Instantly, Bacon’s style resonated with me…
…depicting grotesque versions of what he observed, and using both pale and dark color palettes simultaneously!?
Wow! What impact!
And so, I chose to mimic the style of Francis Bacon for the assignment prompt.
Thus, all stylistic choices in this self-portrait are based on my interpretations of Bacon’s work.
I had a lot of fun creating this piece.
The assignment was a challenging exercise with two main learning goals:
Observe myself as objectively as possible, and
Explore and interpret another artist’s style (without the ability to talk to the artist directly).
Since I had to understand the artist on a deeper level in order to mimic their style effectively, I needed to approach the assignment methodically. I needed a process…
My Process
I completed a short study of Bacon’s self-portraits by first creating my own portrait of Francis Bacon from a photo.
Then I tried to recreate sketches of the abstracted self-portraits Bacon created.
Left: my portrait sketch of Bacon. Ink and acrylic paint on sketch paper. Right: my sketch of Bacon’s self-potrait. 2010
As I created these sketches, I tried to get a feel, an understanding, of how and why the artist represented himself the way that he did.
Obviously, there is a limit to how much insight one can glean from this method. I did my best to interpret Bacon’s style. The next step was to attempt to use his style to create my own self-portrait.
Compiled: my first attempts at using Bacon’s style for self-portraits. Various mediums. 2010
Besides his style of abstraction, the other aspect of Bacon’s work that resonated with me was how he used soft, pale colors against dark, brooding backgrounds.
Not only does the contrast between the two color schemes have a heavy impact on the viewer, but it also allows for a lot of emotion and symbolism to be packed into the canvas.
Therefore, for my main attempt to create a self-portrait in the style of Francis Bacon, I made sure to focus on using Bacon’s method of disfigured representation as well as his use of contrasting color schemes to infuse my self-portrait with my own symbolism.
I wanted to distort my visage and use color to represent this “two-faced” identity that I was struggling with at the time. I also wanted to express my struggles with my moods constantly shifting between highs and lows all of a sudden.
Detail photos of Self-Portrait, in the style of Francis Bacon (the contemporary artist). Acrylic paint on canvas. 2010
I wanted to convey my struggles between my introverted and extroverted self.
Just a side note:
Now--years later of course--I realize that I am an ambivert.
