Self Portrait 1959

Hubertine Heijermans made this self-portrait with oil on canvas. It's one of those paintings where you can almost feel the artist trying to figure something out, stroke by stroke. The colours are so soft, pinks and greens mostly, kinda like a faded memory or a half-remembered dream, which is exactly the kind of mood that I want to create in my paintings. I can imagine her standing in front of the canvas, brush in hand, head cocked to one side, trying to capture her own essence on canvas. Look at the way she’s built up the paint around her eyes, each little dab and stroke telling a story. It reminds me of Alice Neel's portraits – raw, honest, and full of feeling. There's a real conversation going on, across time and space, between painters like Heijermans and Neel and all of us who are trying to make sense of the world, one brushstroke at a time.