In my painting “Otherness” I took an inchoate and shaming experience about feeling “othered” and made it manifest. When I paint this way from the inside out, I do not feel othered from myself. I feel found. I am currently working on a pandemic self-portrait which forces me to look from the outside in.
What does the part of the face that is exposed express even when it is masked? What does the mask leave out? When one really perceives another’s face ( or in this case my own face) with curiosity and interest, they become complex and specific. To my mind that is the opposite of “othering”. There is a taking in of the other’s being.
