Reflections on family portrait with self-portrait, 2018

Abstract

Performance to video made for the exhibition, Cabinet Interventions at Pollok House, Glasgow, Scotland. This exhibition was the concluding event to series of artists' residencies at the National Trust for Scotland property, Pollok House over the Summer and Autumn of 2017. 'Reflections on family portrait with self-portrait' is a response to a residency spent within a large country house, richly adorned with portraits of the family who used to own it, the Stirling-Maxwell's of Pollok, along side a notable collection of portraits of the Spanish Habsburg family. This work deals with themes of vanity, privilege, representation, family history and the putative possibility of time-travel. It invokes a dialogue between autobiographical details of the artist, his home and genealogy, and the many historical portraits and mirrors adorning the walls of Pollok House