Self-Portrait (2025) | Living Archive

Self-Portrait 2025: Living Archive" is a fragmented, architectural self-portrait functioning as a spatial labyrinth, serving as an foundational piece in an ongoing series exploring memory and identity. Inspired by the multi-focal logic of Persian miniature painting, the composition subverts traditional linear perspective to explore personal history as an evolving, non-linear architecture rather than a fixed timeline. The human body is intentionally removed to focus on a study of psychological absence; instead, "symbolic residues"—such as open, abandoned suitcases, an patterned Persian rug, a radiator, and draped curtains—act as immediate traces of a departed protagonist. Reflecting how nostalgia and identity are constructed through shifting, incomplete memories, the work is finely crafted in acrylic and watercolor across a reconfigurable puzzle of hand-painted Canson boards. These pieces are adhered to hand-crafted, hollow wooden frames of varying depths, transforming the flat planes into a staggered, multi-dimensional relief that invites the viewer to enter and inhabit the room.