A Self-Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

PROJECT STATEMENT

As an immigrant, coming to the USA in 2021 was the first time I grappled with my Indian identity and the fact that I was different from most people around me. In this series, I visually explore this personal dilemma and the desire to deconstruct my identity by juxtaposing microscopic and macroscopic self-portraits, a symbolic act to probe the underlying biological forces beneath the emergence of the self. At this historical junction, where self-representation is a naturalized act that constantly drives people’s behaviors on social media, I use this everyday currency of self-portraits as a pivot and point of departure to explore ideas about identity and how we construct it by analyzing our bodies.

In this series, the creative process involved plucking a part of my body and preparing a glass slide with the sample, which was then photographed using a Leica confocal microscope. The two different microscopy techniques used for illuminating and imaging were - brightfield and fluorescence. The images obtained from the microscopes were then post-processed using the software Fiji. These microscopic self-portraits were then paired with my shadow/reflection self-portraits to accentuate the contrast between these two diverse kinds of self-representation while at the same time highlighting the visual similarities. A predilection for geometric abstraction influences the aesthetic sensibility of this work.

Although the technical process of taking these self-portraits is radically distinct, my underlying artistic approach is the same, i.e., - I am externalizing the presence of my body and analyzing and visually documenting it. This externalization could take the form of observing how my shadow or reflection interacts with the surroundings or slicing a part of my skin and viewing it under a microscope. I am also intrigued by the inherent dichotomies present in this series, such as - microscopic vs macroscopic, abstraction vs representation of the body, and concrete physical objects from my body vs the ephemeral and intangible presence of it.

By consciously creating a fragmented and uncertain version of self-representation that contradicts photographic tropes, I present a more visceral documentation of my corporeality and visual presence. Looking inside and outside my body is a way to probe my identity and ask the perennial question that we all have pondered at some time in our lives - “Who Am I?”