Collection: HUE : YOU
The concept of self-portraiture is inherently linked to selfies and photography. It involves self-consciousness, self-interpretation, or visual archives of their presence. The notion of self-portrait is intrinsically linked to our identity and a unique ability to mirror reality.
Catching a glimpse of our reflection, a representation, which is often photographs, painted or sculpted by an artist. The first ever portrait of himself was produced by Robert Cornelius an American pioneer in photography who produced an image of himself using a daguerreotype camera in 1839, which is also one of the first photographs of a person. Because the process was so slow, he was unable to uncover the lens, run into the shot for one minute or more, and then replace the lens cap. Even though the term ”selfie” has only been around since 2002, the debut of the portable camera in 1900 led to self-portraits, or selfies, becoming a widespread idea.
Russian Grand Duchess, Anastasia Nikolaevna, at the age of 13, was one of the first teenagers to take her picture using a mirror to send to a friend in 1914. And because this idea grew even more in the 1970s with affordable instant cameras, such as the classic Polaroid, and it's making a comeback thanks to Instagram. But once Sony came out with the Ericsson mobile phone in late 2003, the introduction of a front-facing camera was born. now we have fields of cloud servers holding millions of selfies.
Over 17 million selfies are uploaded every week. Before the front-facing camera, artists had always utilized similar ideas to the selfie. And many artists have done self-portraits. Many of these self-portraits were composed to tell you a story, similar to others' experiences.
Artists in the 18th century, are often needed to do something to make a better living. And painting portraits was the way to do that. It is an era when photography didn’t yet exist, and so a painted portrait was one of the only ways that you could have a record of what a loved one looked like. And that is why painted portraits had a different kind of value than they have today, for both ordinary people and the wealthy who could afford big commissioned paintings.
UP Diliman College of Fine Arts student draws the idea of self-portraits in their piece in the “Hue: You” online exhibition at The Grey Space. They represent a particular individual, and themselves and it intends to capture their likeness personality.
They create a depiction of their personality, mood, expression, appearance, and individuality. It is the mirror of moral and phycological features, the other meaning of Storytelling, and is often characterized as a strong sense of narrative from the artist's life story.
The work of Alexandra Monserrat, Pauline Dela Cruz, Katey Oliva, Jazmin Navalan, Dean Labastera, Tato Yap, Theocibie De Vera, Juliana Del Rosario, Kaira Red, Robyn Gonzales, Norhana Ugking and Henderson Santos dissects portraiture wildest and deepest emotion where their heart and mind are the subjects in their art. As Frida Kahlo quoted, “I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know best”.