Exotic Portrait in Seeing Double

Exotic Portrait / Potret Exotic “My initial idea is to make some work that relates to recent work on paper using highly detailed images of insects. My plan is to use the outline of an insect but to empty out all of the original detail - to remove any possibility of correct taxonomy and nomenclature. I will fill in the outline with highly abstracted stains, spills and pours of fluid colour. I would very much like to work with the outlines of some insects from your part of the world.” “I do like your interpretation of 'double vision'. I would like to engage your idea more directly and confront the fact that indeed we do not have the opportunity to 'see' the same thing. I would like to do a portrait of you too. Of course I have no image to work from, no photograph and have never met you face to face. So, with no visual clues all I will have to go on is my imagination. I plan to fill in the missing detail, much like my insect paintings, with intricately detailed paint. I will let the paint determine the outcome. Perhaps this will not be a portrait in the strict sense of the word and will act more as a comment on the task of creating meaningful detail in paint. All due respect to yourself and to the Beatles.” “As we originally discussed, it is a portrait of sorts. It uses an outline of me filled in with spills and stains of colour - a colourfully detailed way of avoiding knowing the full detail. The work also features a beetle - transfixed in mid-air. I deliberately misinterpreted your reference to the Beatles - I suppose as a way of acknowledging the difficulties of understanding someone else's culture and language. The phrase 'lost in translation' springs to mind.” “So the 'double take' seems to have resulted in two portraits, each one with its own unique signs and symbols, yours grounded in the ‘confusions and certitudes’ of a life-time’s experience, mine a little up in the air, exotically indeterminate. I look forward to meeting you in person.”