Zelfportret 2007 nr. 70 2007

Philip Akkerman made this self-portrait in 2007, probably with graphite or pencil on paper. It looks like a drawing, but maybe it's a painting—the nature of mark-making often blurs those lines. The whole head is built up with careful, almost frantic, lines. Look closely, and you can see how each line adds to the form. What at first seems like a flat plane actually has real depth through the shading. The linear marks describe the topography of the face, but they also create a kind of abstract field. The hatching lines in the background seem to push the head forward, making it feel more present. It reminds me a little of some of the portrait heads Picasso was doing; not in terms of style, but in terms of this intense concentration on the human face as a landscape of lines. Like Akkerman, Picasso seemed endlessly fascinated with the possibilities for representing the human form, and how each representation changes how we see, and think, and feel.