Self-portrait with Migraine

[Xander Calceta]

you have painted it very well. whew!!! I can feel your migraine in that picture. now i'm having a headache in that painting..hahaha.

[Thomasin Dewhurst]

Carlos, thank-you very much (yes, I do change the names of paintings sometimes as I find something more fitting to my intentions, or perhaps it is because I am very forgetful). I appreciate your comments very much!

Thank-you, too, for your kind comments, Xander!

[Heidi Maiers]

Very interesting self study Thomasin - I like it a lot. I too noticed the faintness of the mouth. Almost as if you wished to silence that migrane! Or perhaps you are a quiet person. I know if I were a painter, I'd be tempted to play down my mouth since I rarely use it to speak with.

[Thomasin Dewhurst]

Thank-you, Heidi. With this painting I didn't set out to paint the theme of migraine, I just happened to get one whilst the work was in progress, and seemed the most prominent thing about me as the work was being finished. The faintness of the mouth is actually a compositional element - in the struggle of finding something that worked the mouth happened. Although, I do think that , even if not deliberately, everything I put down related to the migraine.

[Alexandra Tyng]

Thomasin,

I guess I overlooked this! It's one of my favorites from your website. The eyes strike me immediately. "Mute suffering" is what I think of, and now that I read these comments about the mouth, it seems to fit in. Somehow you've expressed visually the feeling of pressure in the brain, both by the expression on your face (amazingly painted with such minimal detail) and the light around your head.

Actually to me the colors are very evocative. The dark, warm color of the majority of the painting seems like dense brain fog, or an "aura" in migraine language, that you can't see through. The relative coolness of the actual aura (in color/art language) looks to me like a visual description of pulsating pain. Fascinating portrait!

[Thomasin Dewhurst]

Alex, thank-you once again for seeing so much in my work that I would never notice (I feel so profound after reading your posts!). Have you ever done any art criticism for journals and newspapers? I am so pleased you respond to this one so well.

[Thomasin Dewhurst]

Dear Sharon

Sorry to be so late in seeing this - the domestic whirlwind has swept me up for the past week or so! Thank-you so much for your very kind remarks! Well, Sharon was a wonderful house guest, so warm and generous; as easy to be a host to as a member of our family. We, unfortunately, did not get to see any of her work (I suppose her 70 - 80" canvases were a little difficult to fit into her carry-on luggage!). Hopefully we will be able to them before too much longer, though.

I am very pleased you like the portrait, Sharon. Thank-you very much indeed.