Self Portraits, Various

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mixed media assemblage
560 X 405 X 40 mm
by Dale Copeland, 1994
In the artist's collection

As it says, these are my ways of seeing myself. A gilded mask, no attempt at flattery, in spite of the medium. Is that a halo? The canonisation of junk, if anything. The texture is much worked on, with gold leaf and drops of lead solder spattered behind the glass. The blackboard at the back of the old oval frame is for my years of teaching. I told the students I wanted the formula eiπ = -1 on my tombstone. There's a pure beauty in mathematics. The dead rat? It's me, too. Or will be, soon enough. And the spray of false finger nails - it took me 40 years to get over the self loathing and guilt induced by thin models and fat advertisers.

Dale Copeland lives at Puniho, coastal Taranaki, New Zealand

More of her art can be seen in the Showcase section of the Virtual Tart website.


email Dale at   dale@tart.co.nz