6 self potrait artists

Kathy Kolwitz








Kathy Kolwitz is an artist who mainly works with graphite and charcoal pencils and does self portraits of herself portrayed differently, Kolwitz is a jewish woman whom survived world war two and the holocaust and a lot of her work portrays some raw emotion which she had felt throughout that stage in her life.

Phillip Guston







Phillip Guston is an artist whom paints himself in surreal ways, his work signifies his addiction to alcohol which he has had since a young age and what it was like for him to get over it, I like the way in which he paints quite comically but this however contrasts the seriousness in which it affected his life.

Ken Kiff







Ken Kiff is a figurative artist and was brought up when abstract art was becoming a big thing, so this influenced him a lot, resulting in his paintings and other art work to look almost dream like and like that of a child's fantasy tale.

Guy Denning







Guy Denning is an self portrait artist whom uses mediums of paint, charcoal , pencils and collage within his work. Denning is one of my favourite artists due to how with only a few powerful lines amongst some smudged colours he can effectively grasp the figures emotions and gives a huge amount of detail.

Bryan Lewis Saunders







Bryan Lewis Saunders is an experimental artist and he set out to give himself unique factors whilst painting unlike other artists, for his self portrait series of work he gave himself multiple drugs, each painting he is under the effect of something different, this series of work I found to be extremely amazing due to all the different styles he achieved. Showing that artists may perceive things differently depending on the way they feel and the chemicals in their brain.

Francis Bacon







Francis Bacon is an artist whom manages to show a lot of raw power and emotion with his paintings, often isolating his figures in cage like shapes and using dark colours, he became renowned as one of the most influential dark and gothic artists. His self portrait of himself shows his face to be twisted, perhaps signifying that he sees the world in a different way from others, at the time bacon was a closeted homosexual so this might have had some relevance.