‘WE / ONLY’

A SELF PORTRAIT OF US ALL

WE ONLY …is a selection of several works which consider the genre of self-portraiture.

These works, some of which were created for this site specific exhibition, others several years ago, were presented at Dalkeith Palace in August 2025 for the first time.

One of these works (RESERVED) involved a live performance.

This work seeks to ask questions, not only of myself, but perhaps of us all, individually and ultimately as a collective force.

Often the same question, with varied answers. Who are we? with the dichotomy consideration being, AM I … I AM.

As I age, I’m more convinced of the possibility of us being part of a greater singular form. In the way a sea consists of fluid, ever changing elements and energy, capable of many forms and freedoms. Or as a sky with its endless galaxies stretching beyond our understanding, but hopefully never our imagination, which itself is incapable of measure or prescription. Murmuration, a dance of minds, as it appears, seems to result from apparently effortless coordination when many minds think as one. Complex common ground from and surely within us all.

What is presented within this group of works is an exploration of quiet fragility, perception, innocence to an extent, and experience …likewise, fear, hope, and reflection.

These works have all been created in whole or part form, using various photographic processes, and come from a singular mind, offering a self-portrait of sorts, which is presented to strangers for consideration and in so doing may offer some clarity within the closed boundaries of another’s mind …a viewpoint where the plural is informed by the singular.

SELF-PORTRAIT - WITHOUT QUESTION

Jan van Eyck’s Portrait of a Man (Self Portrait?) is regarded as one of the first self-portraits by an independent European artist.

However, the title of van Eyck’s painting, held in The National Gallery in London, adds some question to it actually being a self-portrait …ultimately, we shall never know.

This small beautifully crafted oil painting mesmerises me and I connect with it in an almost spiritual manner. For a nano-second the world beyond our gaze becomes somewhat irrelevant. There is not then and now, only he and I.

Most likely created to promote his services and his place within the world, this interpretation is somehow pure in these days of ‘selfies’, often promoted at a global audience noting our significance, for a fleeting moment at best.

I wished to pay homage to this work of van Eyck and offer my contribution by means of an instant mechanical process - a camera phone snap of the original painting and computer manipulated likeness of myself superimposed thereafter.

This unique print is 1 / 1.

A self-portrait inspired by perhaps another …without question.

SELF-PORTRAIT - (530 W47th St. NYC 10036)

This set of images were made on the roof of my apartment in NYC some years ago and are some of my first explorations into self-portraiture.

It is not simply a snapshot of happy and sad, more so the consideration of balance between what we perceive and the reality it can sometimes bring. Offered as a consideration with regards to energy, positive and negative presented in the form of a simple line’s direction.

New York was a city I’d dreamed of living in as child, with little expectancy of it ever becoming a reality, given the environment that surrounded me at the time.

All these years later, New York City was all I imagined and hoped it would be, the magical place the little boy once dreamed of.

It likewise presented many other considerations, questions and circumstances only the adult can understand when reflecting on the sacrifice often needed in achieving such dreams.

A simple change, a moment or event.

11.3.11

The events of a day, unimaginable only a few short hours before, often act as a reminder of the preciousness of each moment.

The bold aesthetic statement of these works titled 11 / 3 / 11 naturally attracts some minds - maybe because the contrasting black and white tones and splash of red placed within the frame trigger enjoyment or pleasure in our subconscious.

At first sight we often don’t need to know the context of a work to feel attracted to it. We accept it in our mind’s eye as being pleasant or unpleasant.

How does our perception change by simply knowing and seeing the same frame with greater information and context?

These works symbolise fragility, reflection, memorial and gratitude.

The prints are cross-sections of an unscheduled neuro-cranial CT scan I had on that day in March 2011.

Lying in the CT scanner, my thoughts, at that very moment, were being recorded photographically, with the exposed results being pivotal to my future. In a second, my perception of life may or may not have changed. I was a long way from home.

Thankfully the results of my tests were as hoped and a sense of relief embraced me. In such gratitude we all feel an almost ecstastic sense of obligation, a short-lived promise to live every moment as though it was our last, perhaps life’s longing for itself.

My momentary relief was suffocated when the same doctor who had given me the good news told me that a terrible tsunami had taken place in Japan, with news of the chaos just coming through.

I asked if I could hold onto the original x-ray film scan.

For this exhibition I have manipulated the original x-ray film and taken images of my brain cage - cross-sections of a citadel and protector of much I hold dear, beyond matter alone.

I wanted to add a human element to this largely cold computerised, photographic and mechanical process, and chose to add a memorial to the events that took place in Japan that same day. A simple freehand splash of red ink, in recognition of others and a shared fragile existence.

WITNESS: A PORTRAIT OF US

A self-portrait I made in 2007 has been placed next to a mirror.

I …becomes a portrait of us.

How distracted, perhaps uncomfortable, does the viewer’s gaze become when their own reflection is juxtaposed against that of a naked figure wearing a clown’s mask.

Does the mirror allow us to consider the possibility of the distant gaze of a stranger viewing us, as we view us?

Whose presence holds our attention?

This work originated from an idea that lead to the portfolio: THE CLOWN COMES TO TOWN.

BIRTHDAY SELF-PORTRAIT SHADOW, 11th Ave, NYC.

An early experiment in self-portraiture, made on my birthday, 2007 in NYC.

I passed this wall most days largely unnoticed.

In the words of Robert M Pirsig

'“We keep passing unseen through little moments of other peoples lives”.