"The thing I like about a photograph is that it represents a frozen, poem like moment in time."--Chuck Close
Chuck Close's approach to painting was inspired by the non-hierarchical, all-over surface of American painting epitomized for him by the work of Jackson Pollock. In Big Self-Portrait, Close overlaid a photograph of himself with a numbered and lettered grid, then reproduced the intricate visual details block by block--a technique devised by Renaissance masters and later adapted by contemporary billboard painters.
In this format the image became a mosaic of black, gray, and white visual information that the artist replicated by spraying a mixture of black acrylic paint and water onto the canvas with an airbrush. Specific features like the illusion of light reflecting off the hairs of his beard were realized by scratching paint from the surface of the canvas with a razor blade. Big Self-Portrait was the first of Close's now signature series of monumental head-and-shoulder portraits.
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