Twin Selfie with Nephew

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$650.00

My twin sister, Kelli, with her son, Luke; an indirect self-portrait.

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John Crowther
John Crowther Critic

September 01, 2022

Art's utility as a means of communication is perhaps its most significant contribution to humanity. Art is a window into the experiences of others, a means to feel what we have never felt, and a way to see beyond our subjective physical and psychological boundaries. As the purview of artistic expression expands, so does its communicative power. This is not to say that artists have become more adept at communicating the intricacies of their subjective states (although one could construct a convincing argument that changing social conditions have enabled a more honest and introspective dialogue [I see a future newsletter]), but that their means of expression and cultural inspirations have greatly multiplied.

Shelli Langdale’s understated and fascinating work on paper, Twin Selfie with Nephew, is a topical exploration of contemporary forms of expression and the societal ethos they cultivate, considered through the lens of one of art's oldest mediums. The work is at once a family portrait and a portrait of contemporary life. Langdale paints herself and her nephew in an intimate family setting, removed from the spectatorship of the outside world. This snapshot of quotidian family life would be personal were it not for its explicitly public framing.

We have grown accustomed to the wide dissemination of once private everyday scenes. Likewise, we have habituated to sharing visual chronicles of our daily existence. Langdale brilliantly considers the subject of our new forms of communication by placing them in the visual context of their increasingly foreign predecessors.

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Shelli Langdale
Creator
Category
Everyday Life, Self Portrait
Type
Work on Paper - Unframed
Materials
Oil, Paper
Dimensions
10.00 inches wide
8.25 inches tall
0.13 inches deep
Weight
0.25 lbs
Location
Chattanooga, TN, US
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