Human on My Faithless Arm

[Garth Herrick]

Human on My Faithless Arm,
Oil on shaped birch panel, life size in scale, 1995

This is not a new painting. I painted this while feeling a little depressed during this period in my life. I wanted this self portrait to speak about that.

It was painted entirely from life, and much of the time in that horribly uncomfortable pose with a mirror, although interestingly, while dressed most of the time. At the time I first thought it was finished, there was clothing represented but it did not conceptually fit in well. At this point a studio neighbor stopped in to see what I was up to, and was the first to see it of anyone. His reaction was very emphatically presented to me that if this is to be a penetrating self portrait, why am I dressed at all? "Get rid of the clothes!" So I did, and it was done. Now, ten years later, I could never fit in this space!

Of course this portrait does not fit in any other section in this forum, so I thought I might try it here. It will be interesting to see what this new forum nude figurative section will become and I hope there are a number of fine submissions to come. It will be interesting to see what kind of feedback come out of this section which, I believe we can all grow from as portraitists. I welcome your comments and thoughts.

Garth