Portraits, Self Portraits, and Masks

by Simran Singh Gleason
  
  

I take it as an artistic goal of mine to be able to draw portraits well. To be able to capture likeness in a few lines. To be able to capture a feeling, an expression. These are difficult tasks. I have a long way to go.

I find self portraits are easier for me. Perhaps because I spend more time drawing self portraits than portraits of others. I've heard it said that everything an artist draws is a self portrait in some way. Even landscapes?

I guess you could say this is quite a revealing show for me. Here are some of my self portraits, and several series of masks that I have been drawing. I am beginning to become obsessed with the idea of masks. As overlays to persona. As primal invocations of deep elementals. A way to hide. A way to come out into society; to contribute.

* Some Charcoal Self Portraits
* "Overlay," The first mask series
* Some portraits. (sorry, only one so far...)

* Masks: A Ramble. (i.e. not quite coherent enough to be an "Artist's Statement."