Four Self Portraits

Alfredo Arreguin, American, born 1935. Four Self-Portraits. Oil on canvas. 49 ⅜ x 42 ⅜ inches.

Verbal Description Transcript

Four Self-Portraits- painted by Mexican-American artist Alfredo Arreguin in 1995 with oil on canvas. The painting is around 4 feet tall and 3½ feet wide. The frame of Arreguin’s Four Self-Portraits is made of a plain light colored wood and is about an inch wide all around. The canvas seems to float within the frame, as there is a slight gap between the innermost edge of the frame and where the painting begins. The subtlety of the frame is a drastic contrast to the painting itself, which is a dense, busy pattern of flowers and greenery in a colorful traditionally Mexican style, with every shape outlined and emphasized. Bright red blooms are interspersed between lush green leaves and swirls, pieced together almost like a mosaic. But four faces are hidden in the work, all abstracted self portraits of the artist himself. One face appears in each quadrant of the canvas. The top two are right side up, the bottom two are flipped upside down. There are no clear outlines of the faces, but the viewer can almost imagine them in the crowded vegetation. The eyes are slim ovals with blue-green irises and black pupils. The noses are suggested through the rounded edges of leaves. The mustaches are more pronounced, composed of pairs of thicker oblong leaves with either zig-zag lines or swirls that differentiate them from the surrounding foliage. The mouths are one leaf each, bisected by a horizontal vein. One side of the leaf is darker than the other to differentiate the top lip and the bottom. It is clear the faces are no more important than the flora around them, they are meant to be in harmony with their surroundings and to be seen as a whole.
Written and recorded by Emerging Arts Leader intern Isabel Amador © Seattle Art Museum
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