Selfportrait

For more than three decades now the Dutch artist C.A. Wertheim has made many selfportraits. For these portraits she uses all kinds of unpretentious materials, such as used envelopes, pan lids and bottle tops. These remnants of daily life together with manipulated images of herself printed on fabric or paper, are shaped into imaginative and playful collages.
For example, the works with a background of envelopes are either suggesting (urban) landscapes or the sea. Most of the portraits stare the viewer straight in the eye with a powerful intensity, expressing a concentrated quest in a confusing world, where nature joins culture as a force to contend with, activating the vulnerability of the artist.