How and Why 'Maps of Self: Representations through the Self-portrait' was created & how artists link to the focus of self-portraiture and representation:

Throughout history, artists have materialised their identity, personality and passions through the self-portrait. Of course, just as a map conceals the entirety of a landscape, representations of identity hides the entirety of an artist’s personality. Maps of Self: Representations through the Self-portrait is on display in The Warehouse Gallery. This exhibition aims at drawing viewers into the world of self-representation in art, where art makers offer a deep rather than broad view into their identity through emphasising only certain aspects of their character in self-portraits. On show are selected works of self-portraiture by artists Joy Hester and Kiki Smith. Though both artists’ works are distinct from one another, both Hester and Smith draw inspiration from their own world and collection of experiences to illustrate certain aspects of their character through their artwork. 

Hester brings to light intense aspects of her emotional self through her hundreds of drawing and ink works. Hester’s “focused concentration on the human head and face as the source of feeling and psychological insight" was the most distinguishing aspect of her creations (Joy Hester, 2010). She created a range of works focused on her idea of love and the ambiguities of relationships, especially those that she felt in her own passionate relationship with the artist, "Gray Smith, whom she met in 1947" (Joy Hester, 2010). Her relationship with Gray Smith particularly influenced her to work within a deeply personal and emotional context. This emotional context deepens the ideas evident in a range of works she created in the late 1940s and 50s. Hester's use of the male and female as subject matter in Love [II] (1957), Love [Heart group] (1949) and her 1956-7 series titled Lovers, as well as the merging of faces or physical features of the subjects, convey the sense of oneness between two loving partners. The darker shades of the male through the Love [Heart group] and Lovers series also symbolise the two parts of a whole, the yin and the yang. Having been diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease around the time she met Gray, who suffers from epilepsy, resulted in Hester's sense that they were one body with a "shared emotional life" (Hart, 2001). The complexity of the love Hester felt and the depth of empathy and identification toward Gray Smith, led to the confusion of identity Hester expressed in her work. Hester wrote to her friend and arts patron Sunday Reed "around August in 1947: 'How can I love Gray when he is me...He is the "man" of me and I am the "woman" of him... It's like a puzzle piecing oneself together' (Hester in Hart, 2001). Hester highlights her intense emotions and confusion through her portraits.

Though different aesthetically, Kiki Smith also magnifies aspects of herself through self-portraits. “Known for her sculptures, drawings, and prints that focus on the human body as subject, Kiki Smith has often used herself as material for her work” (My Blue Lake). In her numerous self-portraits, Smith draws inspiration from her life while also exaggerating her physical flaws. Her first self-portrait, Banshee Pearls (1991), is influenced by memories of her childhood. In Banshee Pearls Smith repeats lithographic screenprints of her highly contrasted face in various scales and expressions on twelve sheets of handmade Japanese paper. “Her father…was ill during all of her childhood and…often told [Smith] she was like a banshee - in Irish mythology the female spirit who foretells a death in the family by wailing outside their home”, rather than being angry she embraced the idea (Kiki Smith-Banshee Pearls). Her intrigue with being the death-figure in childhood transfers into her interest in transgressing her own image. Fascinated by the distortions of her faces, Smith stated, “It’s endlessly amusing to make yourself horrific looking” (Smith in Weitman, 2003, p.25). This fascination is evident in many of her works that are done through a personal context such as her piece, Worm 1992, her 1993 Untitled series, and My Blue Lake 1995. Smith uses prints of sections of her body parts to form a giant portrait of a worm and exaggerates physical flaws by presenting herself in a bleak ghost-like manner through photocopy transfers and screenprints in her Untitled series. My Blue Lake evokes the sense of a synthesis between her body and landscape. It captures the skin of Hester’s body as a flat image “similar to the way a map becomes a flattened version of the globe” (My Blue Lake).

Self-portraits in essence are about self-representation; however no representation can embody the entire landscape of an artist’s personality. Representations of self can only map out parts of one’s entire character. Though there are many stylistic differences between Hester and Smith, both artists’ amplification of only certain aspects of their personality in their portraits, make their pieces perfect for such an exhibition as Representations of Self.

Love (Heart Group) (Heart Group) 1949
Brush and ink
Size: sheet 37.6 x 50.0 cm 

Love [II] (Love) 1950
Brush and ink, gouache, crayon and collage
Size: sheet 55.8 x 39.4cm

Lovers [II] (Lovers) 1956
Brush and ink, watercolour
Size: 75.3 x 55.5 cm

Lovers (Lovers) 1957
Gouache, brush and ink

Lovers [III] (Lovers) 1956
Brush and ink, colour wash
Size: sheet 76.2 x 49.9 cm

Banshee Pearls 1991
Lithograph with aluminium leaf additions on handmade Japanese paper
Size: 57.8 x 77.8cm

Worm 1992
Photogravure, etching and aquatint
Size: sheet 108.3 x 156.5 cm

Untitled 1993
Screen-printed menu with photo-lithographed text
Size: 33.2 x 48.7 cm

Untitled (Self-portraits) 1993
Photocopy transfer on handmade Nepalese paper
Size: 50 x 75cm

My Blue Lake 1995
Photgravure
Size: sheet 111 x 139cm

Useful link for information on artist Kiki Smith here.

Besides the self-portraits displayed in this exhibition, Smith also has a diverse range of sculptures and other works. Here is an interview by Carlo McCormick with Smith.

Useful link for information on artist Joy Hester here.

The National Gallery of Australia provides a wide range of works by Hester- click here to visit their site.

References:

Burke, J (2012) Hester, Joy St Clair (1920-1960), Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/hester-joy-st-clair-10493 (17/08/12)

Hart, D. (2001) Joy Hester and Friends, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Johnson, S. (2012) Self-portrait: A True Self?, Scribd, http://www.scribd.com/doc/31358006/Self-Portrait (19/08/12)

Joy Hester and Friends (2001) National Gallery of Australia, http://nga.gov.au/Hester/Index.cfm?WorkID=31759&View=2 (17/08/12)

"Joy Hester" (2001) Australian Art Collector, July-September, http://www.artcollector.net.au/JoyHester (17/08/12)

Joy Hester (2010) National Gallery of Australia, http://cs.nga.gov.au/Detail.cfm?IRN=43905 (17/08/12)

Joy Hester Lovers (2012) Mutual Art, http://www.mutualart.com/Artwork/Lovers/9E2C1022D60D0CA1
(17/08/12)

Kiki Smith-Banshee Pearls (2009) Fifty Two Pieces, http://fiftytwopieces.blogspot.com.au/2009/06/kiki-smith-banshee-pearls.html (19/08/12)

Kiki Smith, Journal of Contemporary Art, http://www.jca-online.com/ksmith.html (11/09/12)

Kiki Smith Prints, Books & Things, The Museum of Modern Art, http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2003/kikismith/flash.html (17/08/12)

Weitman, W. (2003) Kiki Smith Prints, Books & Things, The Museum of Modern Art, New York

My Blue Lake (2000) Walker Art Centre, http://collections.walkerart.org/item/object/7449 
(17/08/12)

The Self & Beyond (2009) Wexler Gallery, http://www.siennafreeman.com/download/pr_selfandbeyond_wexler.pdf (17/08/12)