Exploring Identity Through Art and Literature

📋 Course Outline

1. Self-portraiture and the passage of time
2. Alter egos and gender performance
3. Autobiography and artistic formation
4. Fictional doubles and creative process

📖 1. Self-portraiture and the passage of time

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Self-portraiture: Self-portraiture is the use of one’s own body or image as both the subject and material of artwork.
• Passage of time: The passage of time is explored by showing oneself across different life stages rather than as a single fixed identity.
• Self as canvas: Self as canvas is the idea that the artist’s body or image becomes a surface for experimentation and representation.

📝 Essential Points

• David Hockney produced over three hundred drawn or photographic self-portraits across different stages of his life.
• Hockney’s self-portraits use self-studying to offer viewers an intellectual reflection on time.
• Leigh Bowery described himself as a blank canvas to be painted upon, framing performance self-staging as identity work.

💡 Memory Hook

Hockney paints time: same “self,” many stages, many portraits.

📖 2. Alter egos and gender performance

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions