Monsieur le prince - on his/my birthday

Monsieur le prince - acrylic on panel - 12x12 - 2009

This small painting was finished six years ago and has always been one of my personal favorites. Of all the self-portraits, out of twenty years of my painted image got up in all manner of nonsensical costume and extravagant pose, I feel that in many ways this is the closest I've come to portraying something of my real psychology. Unintentionally, of course. Because I never really try to put my inner self into my work. Of course it's there; how could it not be? But it's more obvious to viewers, I think, than it is to the artist himself. And the aspects of my personality on display are usually my silliness and ironic grandiosity. But in this painting even I can recognize the shyness beneath the somewhat severe physiognomy and haughty affectation. There's a vulnerability in the mouth and in the eyes that the stiff pose and decorated surface can't obscure. If I'm able to stand back enough from my own work, my own face, I would say that this painting probably tells the truth of me better than almost any other.