Healing Through Vision：Mary Qu’s Surreal Self-Portrait

Students Name: Mary Qu

Title: untitled

Work type: Oil on Canvas

Category:  Fine Art

Size:16x20

​This next work is a self-portrait created by Mary Qu depicting herself in a surrealist portrayal. As a child she suffered from kidney disease and recalls coming in and out of sleep as she remembers hospital rooms, fluids being injected into her and hospital rooms.  The sound of monitors and feeling isolated and alone. She remembers that art helped her in this stressful environment cope with the situation helping her heal as she longed for freedom. Mary used many metaphorical visuals to communicate these times that shaped her in many ways. Although not exposed to artist such as Frida Kahlo (1907–1954): The Mexican painter used self-portraits as a primary medium to explore themes of identity, pain, and post-colonialism. Frida also experienced traumatic suffering and spent time in the hospital perfecting her artform. 

The term self-portrait can refer to a wide range of exploratory media, from drawings, painting. sculpture to photography and video. Self -portraits can engage cultural or identity investigation and expressive sensibilities. These works tend to include symbols colors, space or scenes to convey a narrative about their life, thoughts, or evoke an emotional response.  Like many artists in the past these works can act as a visual diary archiving a societal representation of the current zeitgeist.