Self-Reflection 

Editor: This is Joshua LaRock’s "Self-Reflection," an oil painting, though the date is unavailable. The canvas is mostly neutral, except for the striking dark shirt and the man's face, and he seems lost in thought. What catches your eye when you look at this portrait? Curator: It's interesting to consider the 'making of' here, quite literally. Look at the brushwork. It’s not aiming for illusionism. It acknowledges itself as oil paint, applied with visible strokes. It's less about representing reality and more about presenting a material process. Consider the social context - are we meant to think about labor? Are the visible brushstrokes themselves a mark of the artist's labor? Editor: So you are focusing on the physicality of the artwork itself, and the artist’s labor to produce the piece? Curator: Precisely. We must think about what is involved when making something of art. The materiality challenges that division between high art and mere craft by highlighting that 'making' aspect of it all, right? I would add, what kind of consumption are we engaging in, when appreciating this type of labor on the artwork itself? Editor: That’s a fascinating point, reframing how we "consume" art. It’s making me think differently about portraits in general! Curator: Indeed. Thinking about 'how' something is made, brings us so much closer to challenging and disrupting established values and boundaries within the art world. It brings us to question everything we were taught before about portraits. Editor: I never thought about a portrait in terms of production. I’ll definitely be looking at paintings differently from now on.