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

creating self investigating itself) changes and splits into different roles and persons. 'A whole divides
and changes', from being oneself and the other self into a range of other identities, roles and
appearances ― painter, subject, observer of the subject who is the object, who reflects and is reflected
simultaneously (Chadwick, 2002). The artist is both painter and sitter (West, 2004), researcher and
interpreter, artist and scientist (Lorand, 1991), creator and observer (Bell, 2000) and the borders
between these roles are breached and blurred. "There is a sense of dialogue between the artist as
observer and the artist as creator. He or she must confront self-interest, self-love, self-evaluation and
self-knowledge, and bring them all together on paper or canvas" (Sullivan, 1997: 30).
A 'multiplicity of faces' is also, as was mentioned, a large body of portrait paintings. Each painting is one
interpretation of the reality perceived at the time of a given encounter in front of the mirror. One
permanent reality produces numerous extrapolations and these extrapolations this study terms 'visual
texts' – research products written in the language of art.
This birth of the researcher/scientist (as distinct from the researcher/artist) is equivalent to the "death of
the author" (Barthes, 2007). The birth of the researcher has killed the author. The text written in the
language of art, an autonomic and enigmatic entity, now separates creator from researcher. As the
post-structuralist school claims, the painting that was defined as text disconnects itself from its creator
(Derrida, 2002; Barthes, 2007). The author disappears from the critical discourse to be replaced by the
reader. The author vacates the centre, to be replaced by the text, detached from its creator and open to
any kind of subjective interpretation.
The 'turning point' that was the 'act of separation', has created a new centre. The 'self' that had been in
the centre has been replaced by the text, which now becomes the focus of the discourse, hiding the
story of the 'self'. The new situation raises new questions and leads on to the next and third stage of
observation, which is the 'investigative activity'. This is the stage which this research study was
designed to reach and on which it wishes to focus.
This third stage in the research trajectory exposes a gap which the current study wishes to fill. The text
being written in a visual, non-verbal language, it carries hidden messages, a visible phenomenon hiding
other issues among its forms and signs. The form of the text as such raises the problem with which this
research wishes to contend – how to explain and interpret a text in such a complex situation? It will be
the task of this research study to deal with this complexity, set out the problems that emerge from it and
suggest a solution to them.
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