"Double Self Portrait with Death"
195x195cm/76.8"x76.8"
Oil on canvas.

This year I had the opportunity to live closer to nature close to Malaga, Spain.
Having felt trapped in many ways since the pandemic started it was a welcome change that I found out was hard as well. This type of solitude ended up not being what I was hoping for but gave lots of food for thought.

This canvas shows me being torn by different desires and in either way somehow living an unfulfilled life. On the right the 2021 version of me can be seen with it's modern day tool in hand, part of a city, connected to the world but mainly digitally. An empty chair is the company he has. Symbolically on this chair sits Minerva's owl, who states wisdom, however as well "only flies as dusk" as said by German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. The meaning of Hegel's saying is that philosophy/wisdom takes flight only at the end of the day, after the day's main events have taken place. For Hegel, this was not tragic. His particular point is that it is only at the end of human history (which he associated with his own time, the early 19th century) that human beings can come to understand history's developmental logic.

Having visited the Caves of Nerja this year I got interested in a hypothetical scenario where one lives a hunter gatherer style of life, one that can be argued human beings are just as capable of if not better suited for.
On the left I portrayed myself in this way, accompanied by cave drawings I'd like to think I would be creating. Telling stories for generations to come. I feel there is no place for this person anymore though. Therefore death has her arm around him taking him with her, leaving the other one remain, who clearly still has to figure things out.

On the bottom left the poem "the Farewell" by Guillome Appolinaire can be found. I couldn't get it out of my mind while creating this work and functions as a dialogue between the characters of this work.