Cubist self-portrait 1914

David Kakabadzé made this Cubist self-portrait with oil paint, and who knows what else. I like to think that artists can never really conceal the process of making, that it always leaves a trace, like a kind of DNA. Here, there’s a real material conversation going on, with all these browns and tans, dark shadows and textures. What strikes me is the artist’s palette right in the middle, front and center. The palette is rendered with such care, mimicking the look and feel of wood, its grain and its earthy warmth. It almost feels like a portrait of the creative act itself, as if he's not just showing us who he is, but what he does. This reminds me of Picasso’s collages, or Braque's still-life paintings – and how they used humble materials to make something so conceptually rich. It’s a reminder that art is always in dialogue with other art, always riffing, always in process.