Self Portrait (2018)
Oil paint on plaster, 27.5 x 19.6 x 2 inches each (69.8 x 49.7 x 5 cm)
Image courtesy the artist
Self Portrait is a ten-piece sculpture in which one hundred names are painted in black oil paint on ten plaster tablets. The work was completed by Shirt in 2018 and first exhibited in Kunsthaus Baselland Museum in Basel, Switzerland, as part of FHNW’s MFA show "Atlas Of Heavens" curated by Chus Martinez. In 2019, Shirt’s Self Portrait was exhibited again in the group show "Of Color" held at Helmhaus Museum in Zurich, this time with the works laid on a wooden table, although in an updated physical state with one of the tablets presented in broken pieces.
In the artist’s words:
"While the work was still in progress, one of my professors told me that making the casts in plaster so big and flat would run the risk of the individual tablets possibly cracking in transit or over time. This to me made sense in a poetic way, as the very notion of my being inspired by these people, many of which I will never meet or know, will change, erode, and very well break down over the course of my life and beyond. Debuting in the thesis show, the work was only a few days old, fresh and new, my “self portrait” propped up on a shelf: a snapshot of who I was at a time leaning coolly against the wall. Only weeks later indeed one from the ten tablets splintered down the middle and cracked in three. I will exhibit and let the work evolve as I do."
Previous work Next work
Oil paint on plaster, 27.5 x 19.6 x 2 inches each (69.8 x 49.7 x 5 cm)
Image courtesy the artist
Self Portrait is a ten-piece sculpture in which one hundred names are painted in black oil paint on ten plaster tablets. The work was completed by Shirt in 2018 and first exhibited in Kunsthaus Baselland Museum in Basel, Switzerland, as part of FHNW’s MFA show "Atlas Of Heavens" curated by Chus Martinez. In 2019, Shirt’s Self Portrait was exhibited again in the group show "Of Color" held at Helmhaus Museum in Zurich, this time with the works laid on a wooden table, although in an updated physical state with one of the tablets presented in broken pieces.
In the artist’s words:
"While the work was still in progress, one of my professors told me that making the casts in plaster so big and flat would run the risk of the individual tablets possibly cracking in transit or over time. This to me made sense in a poetic way, as the very notion of my being inspired by these people, many of which I will never meet or know, will change, erode, and very well break down over the course of my life and beyond. Debuting in the thesis show, the work was only a few days old, fresh and new, my “self portrait” propped up on a shelf: a snapshot of who I was at a time leaning coolly against the wall. Only weeks later indeed one from the ten tablets splintered down the middle and cracked in three. I will exhibit and let the work evolve as I do."
Previous work Next work