Do you see yourself as the world sees you? Most of us have a different idea of ourselves compared to what our peers and family see us as. Most of us don’t even realise it, I don’t think. Which is why it is always interesting when an artist chooses to do a portrait of themselves.
Yayoi Kusama, an artist who could be said to live in a kaleidoscopic world of schizophrenic colours, did a self portrait in black and white. I am not an art critic. But perhaps it is a metaphor for truth as often been described as black and white, and she believes that she is being honest in her representation of self to the world. In a painting not distracted by colour, we begin to read more of the lines, patterns and shading used to construct her face and background.
