Face Off

Self-portraits, historically the province of artists, were once a reflexive genre—in part, a way to imbue their presence with aesthetic authority. Now that nearly everyone takes selfies, we are inundated with our likenesses. But how do we see ourselves, really? And are artists’ self-portraits any different from others? The original photographs in this portfolio navigate the rich territory between traditional self-portraiture and the pictures we all make of ourselves each day.

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Fashion photographer Arthur Elgort rose to acclaim with a more spontaneous snapshot approach, breaking from his predecessors’ highly controlled studio practices. He stands here beside his blurred Olympus, looking into the mirror. His facial features are dominant, in sharp focus, as he seems to appraise his reflection. Meeting our eyes, his gaze is intimate—both studied and studying. It offers some guarded exposure to the artist’s inner life, a subtle and inviting expression. Likewise, director Clara Cullen looks down at her camera as she stands backlit in relaxed contrapposto, conveying an air of confidence and ease. Pausing as if moments from dashing off to fulfill some errand, the artist projects a sense of self perfectly attuned with this casually curated interior, its elegant furniture, earth tones, and natural forms.

Viviane Sassen’s picture also includes a camera, but here it obscures its owner’s face. She lounges nude on the ledge of a bathtub, splotches of applied color drawing the eye toward details like the gentle curve of an arched foot, the sharp angles of her arm and leg. These embellishments reveal the mind behind the camera—what she hopes to disclose or conceal from sight. In Richie Shazam’s take on the prompt, the model and photographer holds a fish, an unexpected totem asserting a deeper surrealist sensibility behind this studio portrait. Visual rhymes abound: The ripple of iridescent scales echoes the sheen of her lipstick and crimped purple hair.

Camila Falquez’s portrait is charged with revolutionary fervor. The artist sits astride a makeshift cobalt horse fashioned from a cloth backdrop folded over a ladder, posing in a heroic style—think Bolívar, Napoleon, or Joan of Arc—while a cable release unspools toward the edge of the frame. Renowned for her chromatic portraits of politicians, celebrities, and marginalized people, Falquez draws attention to the iconography of official power. Artist Buck Ellison’s contribution is more sly in its construction. A generic menswear ad is overlaid upside-down on a graduation portrait of Ellison in full regalia, grinning and clutching his mortarboard. Only a sliver of his face is visible. Fresh from finishing school, the artist is teasingly presented as a model citizen and consumer.

Together, these images suggest the many different selves that we’re invited to inhabit each day. Yet every self-portrait ultimately remains a mystery, its truth visible to its maker alone. The genre’s beauty lies in the tension between a performance crafted for exposure in the digital commons and the guises we wear to withhold our secrets, most of all in the public realm.