Introduce Mark Draisey UK based portrait painter through his self-portraits. Cover picture: Bridge.
Aside from portrait commissions, I have worked on a series of very personal self-portraits that focus on my physical and mental health issues, my sexuality, and simple everyday routines.
From the age of 18 I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes which has not been plain sailing. Several of my oil paintings depict how the condition has effected my life. In have also suffered with mental health issues from earlier than that. Firstly, discovering, and later accepting being gay, and more recently to do with my work and, more importantly, loneliness having never been in any form of relationship throughout my life. After bottling all my demons up for so many decades, when I reached my late 50’s I thought it about time to exorcise them by creating these portraits and exhibiting and publishing them online in the hope that they might help, or give comfort, to others
similarly afflicted. Another factor I wish to approach through my work is the outdated attitudes towards male nudity in art. Certainly in the UK, it is still considered by the majority to be something shameful, dirty or laughable. Hopefully, one day images like mine will be accepted by the more mainstream galleries, and the media, as part of life and the miraculous feat of engineering that is the human body.
Artworks by Mark Draisey @markdraiseyportraits / markdraisey.com
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