Portrait of Survival Oil

"Portrait of Survival", 2024, is a self-portrait. The process begun with applying self-made decaying skin facial prosthetics, zombie-like makeup and a self-styled, gothic aesthetic wig. Which I then photographed and painted in a traditional 1800's portrait style. Its gloomy, heavily contrasted and rotting atmosphere was initially utilised as a test for my later artwork "Achieve Survival", 2024. Even though I took information from this portrait test to take a different route, "Portrait of Survival" now acts as a stand alone piece in its own right. It originally was intended to act as a visual depiction of continuous mental and physical faults (visible or not) that remain both during and after long periods of recovery, linking to the gothic icon of "Frankenstein" and how he often represents disability and neurodivergence. That there is more beneath the surface, often glazed over by compliments of seemingly easy recover successes. This is still the case, yet with the distance from it's original purpose of conducting "Achieve Survival", it now also comments on emotions of failure and worthlessness- which has felt more like myself as I face job and art opportunity rejection since graduating from University.