In the age of social media, the self-portrait has become one of the most misunderstood artistic practices. The endless stream of selfies that fills our screens has gradually transformed the image of the self into a symbol of vanity, self-promotion, and narcissism. As a consequence, the artistic self-portrait is often judged through the same superficial lens.
Yet these are profoundly different acts.
A selfie is usually made to be seen by others. A self-portrait, in its deepest sense, is made to see oneself.
Throughout the history of art, artists have returned to their own faces not because they believed themselves to be extraordinary, but because the self was the only landscape always available for exploration. From Rembrandt’s relentless observations of aging, to Frida Kahlo’s emotional cartographies of pain and resilience, to Egon Schiele’s raw psychological investigations, the self-portrait has rarely been an act of celebration. More often, it has been an act of inquiry.
Who am I today?
What remains of me after experience has reshaped my inner world?
As both a visual artist and an art therapist, I have come to see self-portraiture as something remarkably close to journaling.
Many people write diaries not because they expect anyone to read them, but because writing helps them organize emotions, recognize recurring patterns, and witness their own transformation over time. A visual self-portrait serves a similar purpose. Instead of words, it uses line, color, texture, thread, paper, fabric, or silence.
It is not about recording physical appearance.
It is about mapping an internal state.
In art therapy, the image often reaches places that language cannot. While verbal narratives are filtered through logic, visual expression allows unconscious memories, emotions, fears, and desires to emerge without the need for explanation. The face becomes less a portrait than a territory—a meeting place where identity, memory, vulnerability, and imagination intersect.
For this reason, I believe self-portraiture can be understood as a visual journal. Each image becomes a page.
Each artwork records not how we looked, but how we inhabited ourselves at a particular moment in life.
When I create self-portraits, I am not searching for resemblance. I am searching for presence.
Sometimes that presence appears through fragments rather than through a complete face. Sometimes it emerges from embroidered lines that resemble scars, roots, neural networks, or rivers. Sometimes it dissolves into botanical forms, woven structures, or layers of translucent paper that conceal as much as they reveal. Identity is never fixed; it is continuously stitched together through experience.
Many of my textile self-portraits are sewn with black thread on white linen or cotton. The repetitive act of stitching becomes a meditative gesture. Every stitch slows down time. Every line records attention. The embroidered image grows gradually, almost like memory itself—fragment by fragment, breath after breath.
The process is as significant as the finished work.
Perhaps even more so.
This distinction between performance and process is precisely what separates artistic self-portraiture from the logic of social media. One seeks immediate visibility; the other embraces sustained observation. One asks for recognition from others; the other invites recognition from oneself.
Narcissism seeks admiration.
Self-knowledge seeks understanding.
These intentions may produce images that appear similar on the surface, but they emerge from entirely different psychological landscapes.
Art offers us the rare possibility of looking inward without demanding certainty. It allows identity to remain fluid, contradictory, and unfinished. A self-portrait does not answer the question Who am I? once and for all.
Instead, it keeps the question alive.
Perhaps that is why artists continue to portray themselves across centuries. Not because they have found themselves, but because they understand that the self is never a finished object. It is a living process of becoming.
Every self-portrait is therefore less a mirror than a conversation.
Not with the audience.
But with the person we are still learning to know.
