idea 3/24 self portraiture

Self portraiture.

What is the purpose behind an artist putting their physicality inside of their work? What does that accomplish? And how does that effect the viewer?

There is something that begins to happen within ones work when they chose themselves as the subject matter. That happening is both different to the viewer and the artist, but both still have a unique experience. There is something interesting that appears within an image when it is just me and the camera alone in the room. A vulnerability that would not have shown through had a third person been brought in. We get comfortable. We are no longer thinking about what someone is going to think when they see this image and start to interact with the camera in a much more intimate way.

This effects the viewer too. A connection is made between subject and audience that is not usually made when the equation is a photographer + camera + model. You begin to sense that you are witnessing something that you were never meant to see. It's better than acting and better than modeling because the sense of being watched is not there and therefore there is no acknowledgement of the camera. This was essential to my work. So much that I had to ban anyone from entering or even being near my shoots, so that I could produce the most authentic sense of the situation that was being recorded. There is no acknowledgement of the camera in my images, no direct connection with the viewer. Not even through body language.

But who really benefits from this? The artist or the viewer? Or both? There is a moment of total freedom within the span of time that you are capturing yourself on film,  on paper, etc. You stop acting and just become the part, the moment that is playing out before you. So again I ask, to whose benefit is this?

"A self-portrait is a representation of an artist, drawn, painted, photographed, or sculpted by the artist. Although self-portraits have been made by artists since the earliest times, it is not until the Early Renaissance in the mid 15th century that artists can be frequently identified depicting themselves as either the main subject, or as important characters in their work."

wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-portrait. web.