10.09.1973

I'm from Johannesburg, South Africa and I was educated at the Johannesburg Art Foundation.

I mostly paint self portraits
More work can be viewed on the following site.

http://www.art.co.za/bronwynmillar/

I have always had a passion for realism... chuck close was my first real artistic hero. Recently I have been inspired by Jenny Saville, a British painter whose huge, beautifully rendered, graphic, brutal nudes took my breath away, and actually began my recent self portrait journey. Cindy Sherman is also an influence for me. I had of course done self portraits before, I was already fascinated with portraiture in college, and small self portraits have dotted through my work since then. I did a group exhibition in 96 that consisted of 5 large format self nudes.

The new self's started happening in 2001, and a lot of them have gone to family members around the world. In dec 02, I started going thru an emotional time, a break up and then a very dysfunctional relationship. I was in therapy, and I mentioned the self portraits to my doctor who asked me to bring them in, which I did, one by one to the sessions. He was amazed at the physical representations of my emotional state, and found them very interesting to use as reference of my mental state - they were a lot more honest than my words. I have recently become more interested in researching women artists around the world and have found that there is often a common thread in a lot of women's work in that many women present themselves naked. I find this very interesting, as it happens far more with women artists than with men. I am attempting to answer this question for myself with my work...

My 1st solo in 2005 was called selfish and was all self portraits, including one painted animation. Toward the end of the year I started painting disguised images of myself - half a tomato on my lower lip or my face covered in lipstick. Those works were interesting to me as they were about camoflage and painting our skin. How much of what women do to themselves with their make up and their clothing is to hide themselves from the world? My next show - in November 2006, called "the devil I know" was also selfs, and it further explored this idea. I created 2 alter egos which were possible selves, me with wigs and loads of make up, a blonde babe with a fake tan and big breasts, and a goth with a strapped down chest. I took these chartacters out into Johannesburg and had them interact with people. I passed people I knew and was not recognised. It was interesting to see how these 2 characters were viewed. The goth with wary fascination, the blonde with undisguised lust by men and total disdain by women. I set both of them up on chat and dating sites and had real conversations, even relationships with people over the internet. These sites are still active. I showed up at the opening of the show as yet another character and walked around viewing the work for 5 minutes without being recognised. I am going to continue working with these characters this year.

Technically I work with board and canvas and oil paint from my own reference photos.

Bronwyn Millar Artworks

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