Portrait of myself, 1998
Painting, 300 x 205 cm.
©image: M HKA/CC
Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp (Inv. no. BK7036_M195B).
The Dutch artist Elly Strik maks big, impressive drawings – often two by three metres – in charcoal, graphite, chalk, ink, pastels, oils and enamel paint. In this way her work is an exceptional addition to a tradition of portraiture in which monumentality of scale is usually set opposite the portrait genre’s claims to intimacy. The large self-portraits from 1998 portray the artist shortly after she moved to Brussels, and they immediately exude a grey, surrealistic atmosphere (as a sort of homage?); in one of these portraits a colourless orchid hides the artist’s face, in another she holds out a huge white egg in front of her, again making herself unrecognisable.
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Exhibitions & Ensembles
> Exhibition: The collection XXVIII – If you shoot a bullet in a vacuum, will it keep travelling forever? (Emily Wardill). M HKA, Antwerpen, 17 June 2011 - 18 September 2011.
> Exhibition: The collection XX: Jubilee. Who's got the Big Picture?. MuHKA, Antwerpen, 29 June 2007 - 18 November 2007.
> Ensemble: Collectie Vlaamse Gemeenschap.
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> Ensemble: M HKA_DEFAULT_WORKS.
> Ensemble: NUCLEUS.
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> Ensemble: Portraits of Myself.