Self-portrait completed September 9, 2019. Acrylic paint on canvas. Life size-ish.
It's not supposed to happen in your twenties.
Ironic, an artist at risk of going blind. Unfair.
It was painted in two sessions. One on the day I was diagnosed with bilateral retinal detachment, and the other just a couple days later on the night before the first (invasive) surgery.
I didn't tell anyone I what I was working on during the process. I considered that it may have been one of my last pieces of art.
The pale shape in the background is roughly the same shape as a blur of light I'd been seeing randomly for years. It would suddenly appear on the right side of my vision, and then flatten up in an instant.
I'm partial to gold-black-white colour schemes. I mixed some beige paint along with the white when doing highlights, otherwise they would have had an ugly bluish tint that didn't match the greys elsewhere in the painting.
The painting unnerves some people. I count that as a success.
It looks better in-person.
At least I got to wear an eyepatch for nine weeks.
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