Although I have always been mesmerized by Bacon’s painting style and warped representations of reality, I have never intended to reference him as an inspirational artist because it seemed too obvious, as his work is so widely known among artists and admired by painters. Despite my own admiration for Bacon’s work I thought I should be looking a bit deeper, that is until I began making my own self portraits and realised everything I wanted to convey correlated with Bacon’s work; both the aesthetic and mental components of it.
A while ago I saw one of Bacon’s self portraits in the Cardiff National Museum, not looking for his work particularly. However, I felt I had to photograph this piece because of it’s composition, the way the flesh seems to squirm, the abstracted form and the colour relationships, all piled into what Bacon considered appropriate for a self portrait, representing the heavy emotions he carried throughtout his life.
Francis Bacon (1909-1992) ‘Study for self-portrait’ 1963, Oil on canvas
Self taken photograph.
Almost subconsciously I chose to incorporate a lot of his signature images into my own work, such as the boxed off, claustrophobic ‘square’ format (below, for example), the use of flat, obscure backgrounds, and the less commonly used diptych layout (second to the more popular ‘triptych’).
Francis Bacon ‘Pope 1 = Study After Velazquez Pope Innocent X’ 1951, Oil on canvas
The figure is lightly bordered off by a chalky white line, despite it’s light application it carries so much meaning and changes the feeling of the painting completely.
The right section of my first painting shows how the facepaint was being wiped away, and it somehow looks as though my skin is being wiped away with it, or being moved around grotesquely. I applied the paint quite loosely here, ending up with a more ‘painterly’ style. There is movement in there that can be seen in Bacon’s portraits, but perhaps in a more subtle way. There is also a similar sadness in there, whilst Bacon’s work is known for being emotionally charged, he somewhat concealed the sadness and isolation in his paintings with angry, revolting imagery that immediately comes off as frightening.
Francis Bacon, ‘Study for a self-portrait – Triptych’ 1985-86) Oil on canvas.
Having a troubled upbringing whilst finding his identity and his obvious homosexuality (something his father resentedand despised, creating a negative relationship between himsef and his son) his work was already plagued with negativity. However, following the suicide of his lover George Dyer in 1971 (during that time Bacon was also dealing with the deaths of other close friends and his childhood Nanny) he was shaken from the experience and his work was ultimately taken over by it. Death and time passing became Bacon’s somber new theme, which is the basis of the triptych above, evidently lonely and bleak.
I have acknowleged my work is similarly personal and unfortunate to Bacon’s. Titled ‘Hypochondria’ my work represents the sadness of phobias and the control they have over people, using my own phobias to do this. Phobias create unhealthy habits of avoidance, repetative negative thinking, illogical feelings of fear and isolation, because one believes these feelings cannot be helped. Having dealt with various kinds of experiences like this myself, I thought the most raw and honest way to conduct this would be to base it on my own fears. So Bacon’s self portraits in particular are what have inspired me the most for the way he held importance on his own identity as well as his sitters.