Selbstporträt mit Palette (Self-portrait with Palette)
2005
Oil on board
166.5 × 107 cm (65 9/16 × 42 1/8 in.)
In a larger-than-life American portrait, Albert Oehlen depicts himself as a painter, returning to the genre’s classic conventions. The three-quarter standing portrait is set against a neutral dark background. The artist turns his lively eyes towards an object outside the frame and holds a palette and brush as attributes.
Oehlen continually makes self-portraits not with the aim of making them a vanitas motif but to question the expressive dimension of painting itself, beyond mere personal introspection. Here, he depicts himself as both the subject and object of painting, as creator and the result of his own representation, not without a certain aura.
Selbstporträt mit Palette was exhibited for the first time by the Pinault Collection at the 2018 show "Cows by the Water" at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice.
Oehlen continually makes self-portraits not with the aim of making them a vanitas motif but to question the expressive dimension of painting itself, beyond mere personal introspection. Here, he depicts himself as both the subject and object of painting, as creator and the result of his own representation, not without a certain aura.
Selbstporträt mit Palette was exhibited for the first time by the Pinault Collection at the 2018 show "Cows by the Water" at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice.
Exhibitions
Albert OEHLEN © Adagp, Paris.
