Dundas Street Gallery

6 Dundas St., Edinburgh EH3 6HZ

3 - 9 March 2020

Opening Night

3 march 6 - 8:30 pm

Opening Times

Mon - Fri: 12 - 6 pm

Sat: 11am - 2 pm

Sun: Closed

It’s one thing to present your art honestly to the world, it’s quite another to turn that gaze on yourself. We live in the age of the ‘selfie,’ where reality can be pushed through endless filters until every hint of vulnerability is erased. In this show, all filters are removed as each artist presents an artwork that gives the viewer a glimpse of their authentic self.

Esra Kizir Gökçen

Layered Self
Self is a very complex structure made of layers of task related identities. Behind all these masks, we have a real self communicating the visible layers as well as other beings. This inner voice leads us to survive our labeled social life while it grows and keeps our connection to the creative source. Through this journey, we interfere with other individuals and learn from each other. Every individual is another self, another layered and labeled entity among billions of otherS.

Ann Ruddy

Closer
The self portrait has been distorted and blurred to represent our increasing desire to change our self image in social media until we become almost unrecogniseable.

Nihad al Turk

Carole Robinson

I Don't Care
The irony is I care deeply about climate change, war zones, plastic pollution and endangered speicies. This painting evolved in a response to the devastating effects, on this planet, that humans are responsible for. The garden targets represent blood shed... Symbols are burnt into gold pigment, a contradiction between opulence and destruction

Helen Campbell

SELF
Ironic then that this is the first (and remains the only) self portrait that feels true to me yet it has few discernible features. Perhaps I am finally understanding that ‘self’ is a shifting state, that whoever views this will have their own opinion of what this says about me which no amount of painstaking brushwork on my part can control, and that ultimately it really doesn’t matter. I know it’s me, and that’s good enough.

Alessandro Merlo

Morag Young

SELF
Refuse to fall down. If you cannot refuse to fall down, refuse to stay down, lift your heart towards heaven like a hungry beggar, ask that it be filled and it will be filled.

You may be pushed down.

You may be kept from rising.

But no-one can keep you from lifting your heart towards heaven - only you. It is in the middle of misery that so much becomes clear. The one who says nothing good came of this .. is not yet listening.

Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Izabela Piechota

Margaret Scott

ICU //12
For many years Photography and specifically self-portraiture has played a key role in all my work. While many of the manipulated images become textiles, each series of work always generate ‘stand alone’ photographs. ICU self portraits were a natural progression from my previous work investigating black face and Zwarte piet and had a working title of ‘I see you - but do you see me…?’

Marianne Frank

The New Me
The ordinary is essential. It’s what makes us human and interesting.
Allowing others to have an insight into our emotional life has the power to unite us and to realise that our fragility
is universal and a part of living.

Ralph Overill

Ware
Images from my recorded skateboarding adventures and reproduces them through printmaking processes. it explores video as a mechanical memory - lengths of tape written and re-written with moments from my youth and adolescence - while acknowledging the melancholy absence in the mechanically reproduced image. I see these fragments of dislocated narratives as a reflection of myself, and although I do not appear within these frames I am defined by the people and place

Laura Bello

n my pursuit of Artist expression, I like to deal with the alluring as well as the things that surround us, and the different mediums and colours I use allow me to do that.

Sculpture however is my concern as they seem to balance my spontaneity and imagination.

My sculptures are made in various soapstone and alabaster. I love the colour, the grain, the smooth texture and a sort of translucency which gives the sculpture a grace and a sense of calmness.

Theresa Gourlay

Self Portrait Storm
Portrait in a landscape made with strong ,dense textural marks to emphasise the storm idea throughout the picture.

Esperanza Gomez-Carrera

Hidden
Sometimes we hide our true identities because we are afraid of being exposed. In the process, we become separated from our own souls.

Allan Midcalf

Summer Hill Force
I live to walk and paint - I get my inspiration from the glorious scenery of the Dales. This painting is of Summerhill Force / Gibsons cave in upper Teesdale. Painted in the autumn of 2019.

The painting is full of autumn colours which come out with second and third viewing in different lights. The dark cave makes you shiver and the water thunders, however, the place is quiet and serene.

Barbara Gardner-Rowell

Stop Lying to Yourself
This tapestry weaving is part of a body of work on finding my true identity. It was designed using a linocut print to simplify the image in preparation for weaving. The wool yarns were hand dyed using natural dyes of indigo, madder and lichen. The work incorporates techniques of floating and eccentric wefts.

Judith Rieletto

My current work is an exploration of discoveries related to my awarnes of who I am and that everything that exist, seen and unseen are connected to each other. I am an integral part of the universe and the universe is within me.

Federica Morino

Chris Vervain

Mask maker self portrait1
I do not know who I really am and although I drew the face I saw reflected in a looking glass it seemed somehow unreal. A stranger once greeted me as a dear friend, a fellow mask-maker from an ancient time; but I didn't recognise him anymore than I do myself. And now he has gone too.
Although I sometimes wonder, I can't say I miss him.

Nicola Weir

Elke Counsel

How one person tries to hold on to some direction in a madly accelerating world.

Nick Hazzard

Self Portrait
We look at ourselves in the mirror every morning but we donʼt actually see whatʼs there. The image is flipped. Thatʼs why it can be disconcerting when we see ourselves in a photo. This is how others see us, but to us itʼs strange. I wanted to explore this by doing two self- portraits, one looking in a mirror, and one from a photograph. Both me, but different versions. Would either of them be “authentic” or “objective”? Probably not.

Evie Prescott

Painful Musings
“This small painting was made during a period of enforced inactivity, following surgery. All emotional and physical attention turned inwards. Fantasies about recovery, what had been lost, who had I become. Accompanied by pain, the visualisation helping to heal.”

Deborah Cumming

Key to my Heart
An old key representing "a key to my soul, my heart, my life" is depicted centre stage of this piece. The backdrop to the work is shown as a line drawing of a bird flying in among the spirng blossom to look at the key. New beginnings found during spring time in nature holds the key to my awakening as that is the time that I feel truly alive.

Lee Hardman

Head of Man Sleeping I
I use painting, mark making, shapes or forms to hint at something: to create representations that invite inquisition. This painting, head of a man, sleeping I, is a self-portrait. Although this fact is not necessarily known or apparent or of importance to the viewer, my intention with it is to explore something of vulnerability and intimacy.

Audrey Kirk

Hidden
Between the backdrop of their eyes and projected outward persona. Lies the hidden.

Is this where the authentic self resides? Amongst, frailties, uncertainty, shame and fear.
Restricted like a caged bird — yet, the catalyst that drives.

Self. I sense you.
Changing like the tide.

Eoin McEvoy

Self-Portrait in the Rain
Painted in an expressionist style and with a muted pallette, this self-portrait shows the deepening influence of The School of London, especially the work of Leon Kossof, who was a neighbour of the artist.

Sebastian Bishop

Dimension No2
This painting was painted from life and starting life with a charcoal drawing fixed to the canvas, with a raw umber underpainting on top, then with a final colour layer. I left the darkest areas as they were in the underpainting to create a sense of form and depth.

Hannah Rosnes

Roanne O'Donnell

Burnished Surface Series 2.3

Morag Edward

Self Portrait Six

Paul Fleming

Lucy O'Donovan

Rehab
After her severe traumatic brain injury which happened 11th September 2008. It was done during her time at art therapy in Melbourne, Australia. She was told to select a photo of herself to use. She picked a photo that showed that her hair had been shaved at the front of her head and was regrowing. This is because the front of her skull was removed, temporarily, in order to allow swelling of her brain immediately after the injury.

Caroline Graham

Somewhere I know - 1
Yellowcraigs

I grew up with this place.

Childhood picnics and sand castles,
A brisk swim, family summer fun.
Chilly winter walks with the dog.
I’ve been running here to keep fit.
Skinny dipped at dusk with friends

Shân Monteith-Mann

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Caroline Graham

Somewhere I know - 1 Yellowcraigs I grew up with this place. Childhood picnics and sand castles, A brisk swim, family summer fun. Chilly winter walks with the dog. I’ve been running here to keep fit. Skinny dipped at dusk with friends