"Self- Portrait" – A Study of the 'Self':

Chapter 2:
META-INTRODUCTION
OBSERVATION: PANORAMIC VIEW AND POINTS OF VIEW
In this chapter:
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Artist and Mirror – an Encounter
2.3 Artistic Activity - Investigation and Interpretation.
2.3.1 The Phenomenological Painter
2.3.2 Painting a Self-Portrait – Researching the 'Self'
2.4 A Transitional Object: The Explorative Visual Text and the Multiplication of
Faces
2.5 Creation and Investigation
Summary
2.5.1 From Investigating to Investigated Object
2.5.2 Investigation and Creation: a Meeting of Two Mental Processes
___________
2.1 Introduction
Descartes' saying ‘Cogito, ergo sum’ (I think, therefore I am) made a turning point in the way man
thought of himself. "The discovery of the subject as a starting point to understanding the world offered a
new way of looking at human existence" (Biderman, 2003: 120).
The name of this chapter is ‘Meta-Introduction’ because it deals with the concept of observation itself
and the way it is applied in this study. The word 'observing' has synonyms such as watching, perceiving,
investigating, examining. Hence observing is a kind of research. It is like the action of a qualitative
researcher, who looks at a certain reality with the aim of identifying and understanding it, giving it
meaning (Shkedi, 2003). In this ‘research’ the observer’s looking is a metaphor for the inner activity
20