Three artists share their experience of creating work for the national self portrait collection.
The National Self Portrait Collection of Ireland was established at the National Institute of Higher Education, Limerick (now the University of Limerick). The university has regularly invited artists to submit individual paintings or sculptures of themselves. An exhibition of works from the collection has been touring the country, which is currently
Limerick artist John Shinnors initially was not interested in a self-portrait and had never seen himself as being the subject of his painting. He came around to the idea and found a way to approach the creation of a self image.
This is Gladys McCabe's second self portrait. The first was painted when her son Hugh was a baby and she felt that it was time to produce a second one and is happy with the finished work.
Una Sealy wanted to include elements from her own life present in her self portrait. An artist who has gradually moved into portraiture, she sees this form as,
A more personal, more expressive representation of somebody than a photograph.
This episode of 'Arts Express' was broadcast on 2 March 1990.
'Arts Express' was a fast-moving magazine-style arts programme presented by Mike Murphy. Anne Roper joined him as co-presenter for the second series. Reporters included John Waters, Mary O'Sullivan and Ferdia Mac Anna. It covered theatre, cinema, books and music as well as the fine arts, and aimed to give a taste each week of what was new in the field of arts and entertainment. It was first broadcast on 22 September 1989 and ran for two series.
