Self Portrait
1971 – ?
This is a self portrait in time. It was started when the artist was 21 years old. Previous photos were used to select images for the preceding years and from that time onwards, on his birthday, the artist has had a picture taken at a public photo booth.
The resulting work continues to grow every year. The quality of image is clearly variable and shows the development of photo booth technology – from black and white to colour and from conventional to digital – not always changes for the better!
The self portrait shows the artist’s ageing process. It also creates a tension in a very graphic way between the boxes containing an image and those that are still to be filled. The only difference between the self portrait at age 21 and the current one is that in the earlier version lots more numbers were still visible. As the number of images grows, the empty boxes with all their mystery and potential are progressively covered over.
Even allowing for an optimistic total of 99, not too many boxes remain.
Self Portrait
1971 – ?
This is a self portrait in time.
It was started when the artist was 21 years old. Previous photos were used to select images for the preceding years and from that time onwards, on his birthday, the artist has had a picture taken at a public photo booth.
The resulting work continues to grow every year. The quality of image is clearly variable and shows the development of photo booth technology – from black and white to colour and from conventional to digital – not always changes for the better!
The self portrait shows the artist’s ageing process. It also creates a tension in a very graphic way between the boxes containing an image and those that are still to be filled. The only difference between the self portrait at age 21 and the current one is that in the earlier version lots more numbers were still visible. As the number of images grows, the empty boxes with all their mystery and potential are progressively covered over.
Even allowing for an optimistic total of 99, not too many boxes remain.
Below are all the cropped annual images.
Click on any one to open full-screen and to permit a slide show view.. . . backwards or forwards. . . . fast or slow . . . .
