Self Portrait With Cow Skull

I’m a Taurus. That means that I’m bullheaded, and I spend plenty of time feeling bullheaded.

I first conceived of myself as a bull headed Minotaur regarding a certain sexual situation some years prior to the actual execution of this painting, and so the seed of this idea had festered for a while. However, by the time of the execution of this painting I had new reasons to feel bullheaded, and, the primary situation being a thing of the past, I saw no reason to reference that affair.

In 1993 I brought to an end a long series of portrait paintings, concluding with a self portrait. Soon afterwards I left a current romance to move from Kansas City to Chicago. Once there, having left a good job and a girlfriend for no immediate gain, I initially plopped down, smoked cigarettes, and basked in the misery of my own bullheadedness.

The portrait paintings that I had been doing involved an increasing amount of symbolist elements, and I wanted to pursue those interests in themselves. But, in part, because I didn’t want to fall too near to the realm of “fantasy art,” I had a preference to abstain from the depiction of monsters such as a Minotaur. And so I favored the depiction of costuming, or, in this case, a human figure with the affectation of a cow skull. As well, the affected figure seemed as, if not more, enigmatic to me than a mopey Minotaur might have, and so I liked this element.

So, as my portrait series had ended with a self portrait, so did my new direction begin with a self portrait. The interior is my Chicago apartment, and the basic idea was just the admission of my own stubbornness, specifically as regarded my move there.

 

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