Interior with Plant, Reflection Listening (Self-Portrait) 1968

This peculiar oil painting shows a self-portrait of Lucian Freud, peering out from behind a potted plant. The plant's spiky, variegated leaves dominate the composition, a curtain of green and white against a somber, earthy background. I can almost feel Freud's presence lurking behind the leaves. The paint is thick, a deliberate roughness that gives the work its tension. What was it like for Freud to sit there and observe himself in a mirror, half-hidden and vulnerable? The plant, a living thing, becomes a metaphor for the artist's inner world, the self that he chooses to reveal or conceal. Freud, with his dark humor and unflinching gaze, always challenged conventional notions of beauty and representation, much like other painters such as Jenny Saville, who also dealt with the physical body. Each painter builds on the last, using the language of paint to challenge and expand our understanding of what it means to be human.