? Helen Chadwick Estate, Courtesy Zelda Cheatle Gallery
Self-Portrait
1991
On Display Modern One
'Self-Portrait' is from the 'Meat Lamps' series of works. A photographic transparency is mounted on a glass plate and lit from behind by an electric light. The piece is simultaneously fascinating and repulsive. Cradled carefully in the artist's hands, the shapes of the brain are echoed by the folds of material. The work is a kind of collective self-portrait. Regardless of gender, age or race, everybody's brain looks the same. When we look at the work, our brain is effectively looking at itself, a potentially unsettling experience given that the brain is at the core of our identity.
