s Harewood Castle Self Portrait - Hull Museums Collections

Harewood Castle Self Portrait

Jason Brooks works are immaculately produced photo-realist images which he creates using an air-brush. He analyses the whole process of creating it; his subject matter, the materials he uses and the notion of the artist as a craftsman. This results in a very complex images. Harewood Castle Self Portrait was inspired by a Turner (1775-1851) landscape painting at Harewood House. Brooks is very concerned with the notion of Turner’s paintings mirroring the artist’s response to nature just as this piece mirrors Brooks’s response to a Turner. This is Brooks first and only self-portrait, his face appears faintly in the background, almost lurking amidst the piece as a vague presence. It was also important to him that he should be the one to take the photograph of himself in the glass of the Turner and not get someone else to take the shot. That way, he has controlled the process throughout- in keeping with a traditional self-portrait. The frame also appears to be within another frame, adding to the total illusion of this piece. Brooks is aware of the self reflective nature of the piece and feels it is important to have the viewer’s face also reflected in the glass.