It is difficult for an artist to describe his self-portrait, as the painting itself has already been a detailed description.

 

Before starting the work I knew what my mood and tonality would be like. I became possessed by cognition that the self-portrait should be unruffled, ascetic, plain, straight forwardly tranquil.

I must admit that an artist usually starts his self-portrait when his own life has collided with something too complex, too gaudy, too unbalanced. And then the self-portrait becomes like a lifebelt to grasp this complexity, to endeavour to stop the time, to stop swaying. That is why self-portraits often reveal fury, variegation, abruptness, aggressiveness. To counterpoise this reality it was challenging for me to perform a portrait being aware in advance that this self-portrait would become balanced and equilibrated.

Another approach to self-portraits is that the artist wants to mark the boundaries in his life. This either indicates the end of a certain period in his life or his creation or vice versa – something new is dawning. A self-portrait indicates someone’s computation, it is marking the artist standing on the threshold or facing the closure of something.

A self-portrait can be made all of a sudden – without any special plans because the artist and his environment is just ready for that. And the painting is accomplished without long reasoning. On the other hand, the artist is planning his work for a long time. The artist resembles then a tabby with kittens, rambling and wandering around as if the objective is somewhere not far away.

 

As far as my self-portrait is concerned, it definitely belongs to the second option. Fortunately this quest was not painful but joyful unexpected surprise, retrieval, detection. Having been standing at a window of our flat for some sunny days already I noticed a nice mesmerizing flaxen light. Accidentally there was a mirror on the window sill. I was admiring this facinating yellow reflection of a wall of the schoolhouse on our room, on my face. I did not marvelled my face, but the light on a face. Whoever had stood there in place of me in this light then and there, I would obviously have painted the man. So I started. I portrayed it – my face, which was transformed into an object, it was not me any more. I dare to claim that with every self-portrait an artist drifts farther away from his unique single status. Your sole becomes public and it does not belong only to you any more. I personally feel that a self-portrait is like alienation for an artist, he is emotionally or intellectually separated from something which he would normally be linked with. Something unique has voluntarily been scrutinized and deeply probed into.

 

Due to the small format I decided to paint the portrait with particular details. Up to the blood-vessels on the white of the eyeballs. I am often told that in my real life I never frown so seriously or is so stressed. But these people have not seen me while working. When I am examining the model or object I just have such a strained face or even worse. It is because I neglect myself, the dedication controls my muscles, devotion leads me uncontrolled. I made the right decision to put on that white simple on-buttoned shirt. Consequently the background had to be extremely plain. For sure grey, grizzly, frosted silver, a little olive. It took me ages to find the shade which credibly matches my expectations.

 

After some time, in 2001, I sent the self-portrait to America, to the International Portrait Competition. From amongst 523 portraits my work was chosen among ten finalists.

 

 

Aapo Pukk

portraitist