Kenny Everett Video Show, 1979

What draws me to Egon Schiele's self-portraits is that they almost perfectly capture the disconnect, the struggle for liberation between the body and the soul (or the self?). He masterfully depicts the distorted chaos that arises when the body fights for dominance over the self, while the soul tries to claw its way out of the flesh.

This rupture between body and self doesn't feel like just a stylistic choice — it feels existential. The figure is emaciated, twisted, often staring directly at us with unsettling awareness. It is hyper-aware of its own skin, its own edges, as if trying to understand or escape the limits of its form. The body is no longer a sanctuary but a cage. The soul is no longer a resident but a renegade. Muscles don’t relax; they contract, grip and resist. The hands claw or tremble. The spines bend unnaturally. The eyes accuse, plead and surrender.

It seems as if Schiele didn't just paint himself — he painted the experience of being himself. Of inhabiting a body that often refuses to cooperate with the self’s desires. His self-portraits seem like moments frozen in the act of becoming or unbecoming.