This investigation explores the face of poet, writer and scholar, Otoniya J. Okot Bitek, whom I invited to be involved in the process of making.
Because Julie (as she’s known to her friends) lives in another city, our conversations took place via email, text and a couple of Zoom calls. She supplied me with a series of selfies, that I used as references for the drawings. Early on in our conversations, I warned her that the drawings would, most likely, not be flattering, In spite of this she was still keen to participate.
In one of our text conversations Julie described her response to the drawings (that I’d posted to my Instagram account):
JOB: Sometimes I look at them as if I’m seeing myself without an awareness of me seeing myself. I don’t know if you know what I mean. Like catching yourself in a video that you were not aware was being taken…
EM: Yes, I understand. That’s how I feel when I see my drawings of my own face. Me, not me.
JOB: Exactly. Me, not me. But also me as I don’t know but can somehow recognize? Me as my own kin?
The possibility that I am representing Juliane’s kin, rather than she, herself, was wonderfully liberating.
Even though I draw faces often, I struggle with the presumption of portraits—that we imagine they represent the essential, ineffable character of their subject. My drawings of a specific person’s face represent a desire to know and understand that person, as well as an acknowledgement of the impossibility of doing so.
