Selfies taken with a cellphone are self portraits in the sense that the genre is democratised as everyone can reproduce their own image. However there may be an interesting difference owing to the type of medium. Oil paintings on canvas are like permanent “precious objects” where the artist depicts on its surface a contrived image that is placed in a staged background.
The image of the person portrayed very likely will ‘out-live’ the actual person therefore ensuring a type of immortality. Mosaics or stone masks are the most permanent and durable of mediums.
How permanent then is a selfie? This image is shared often as a candid shot but probably not intended to be permanent.
My Smartphone fell into the Oil Paint 1, 2014
My Smartphone Fell into the Oil Paint 2, 2014
On the other hand the selfie may be immortal as long as it can be retrieved from a Timeline.
These two small mixed media images make reference to the portable cellphone selfie and its perceived fleeting nature and cult of individuality. Some commentators describe it as a form of narcissism. Whether or not by cellphone or more traditional media I see types of self representation as evidence of a journey about questioning ideas around mortality and the Self.
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