Reframing the portrait

The self-portrait is perhaps the most ubiquitous image of the modern era, but how do contemporary artists use the portrait, not just to reflect themselves or their subject, but to shift our understanding of who we are and who we can be? Atong Atem takes us into her practice of self-portraiture, exploring how the history of beautification has inspired her images, and why a love for interior design has been an important influence. And acclaimed contemporary artist Joan Ross explains why fluorescent yellow became central to her work, and how she is reframing the colonial context of the portrait. Those trees came back to me in my dreams is on at the National Portrait Gallery until February 2025