Self-portrait 1917

David Kakabadzé made this self-portrait with oil paint, we don't know exactly when, but you can sense his process in the building up of layers. The texture of this painting is really interesting, isn’t it? Kakabadzé used thin layers of paint, almost like washes, to build up the forms and colours. Look at the background, how the red patterned wallpaper contrasts with the landscape to the left. There's something unsettling about the perspective, with its flat planes and compressed space. But it all makes sense somehow, because painting is really about feeling your way through. Notice how the olive green of his shirt almost blends into the landscape, while the dark lines of his hair echo the lines of the tree. The face feels softer, the colours are blended and less delineated. There's a conversation going on here between abstraction and representation. It makes me think of the work of someone like Marsden Hartley, who was also exploring ideas around landscape and identity. In the end, it’s really about how each artist makes their own language.