Compelling Faces in Art - Mike Parr, self-portrait.

Mike Parr is widely regarded as one of the most gifted living Australian artists. His work is imbued with a strongly cathartic presence. 

This work is from one of his many self-portrait series, that have been created in a range of media that includes performance, installation, sculpture, drawing, drypoint etching and photography. In his performance entitled Close the Concentration Camps, 2002, Parr had his lips sewn together in solidarity with refugees in Australia’s detention centers. 

Once you realize that Mike Parr has cut, branded, stitched, burned and nailed his body in the pursuit of his art, these drawings take on a different context: awareness requires living in the here and now, and not in the elsewhere, the past or the future. It is the repetition of affirmations that leads to beliefs. And once these beliefs become deep convictions, you live your life as a revolution and not just a process of evolution. 

As J.Kent Clark said, “It is a profound human waste for people to go through life half-hearing, half-seeing, and only dimly aware of the range of their own perceptions and capabilities.” And, there can be no progress nor achievement without sacrifice.