Slow down - A Self Portrait is a digital painting built around the tension between momentum and stillness. The snails became the anchor.
Symbols of slowness, reflection and grounding yet in this piece, this white underside means something more, this represents the absence of an option to slow down. The shell is still there, The thought, the awareness, the wish the want the need... but the ability itself is missing. It's a quiet nod to bipolar highs, I don't choose them, and when they arrive they push everything into a frenzied rush.
There's exactly 5899 brush strokes in this portrait and 332 undo's and the software I used tracked my movements on this piece to 1 hour 36 minutes - even the process carries the story, fast, driven, relevant and irrelevant to what I'm supposed to be doing with my time. Unable to pause for long. Somehow, within that pace, this became one of my favourite pieces I've ever made - Something with a story, with real world meaning wrapped in a surreal delivery.
The expression is deliberate, wide, tired eyes and a hand pressed to my cheek, capturing a specific exhaustion which comes from the "Can't stop, won't stop" energy of a high - when your mind is louder than the room and your body is trying to keep up, i kept parts of the rendering loose and unfinished, especially the snails shells, to echo the idea of ongoing movement. the portrait isn't perfectly polished, neither am i when I'm in that state. It's always mid motion, mid thought, mid everything.
The snails added a surreal twist to the sombre atmosphere, shifting the balance of the portrait and pulling the viewers eye in different directions. their stark white undersides interrupt the flow of the image, like moments that should be pauses, but aren't. they are visual reminders of stillness that can't quite be accessed. they soften the overall mood whilst disrupting it, a nod to Rene Magritte, my favourite artist, who often used disruption within his artwork. This creates a quiet push/pull between grounding and pressure.
The background is stripped to a muted grey, chosen intentionally to eliminate distraction. No environment, no external noise, just the figure, snails and quietness of negative space. The noise in this image is internal, and the blank surroundings let that atmosphere sit without interruption.
Slow Down - A Self Portrait is a blend of softness, with surrealism's interruption. a portrait suspended between motion and restfulness. fast and slow, it reflects the feeling of being pushed forwards too quickly, whilst longing for a moment to pause. an image of stillness that can't stay still.