- Artist or Maker
- Catherine Opie
United States, Ohio, Sandusky, born 1961, active Los Angeles - Title
- Self-Portrait/Cutting
- Date Made
- 1993
- Medium
- Dye coupler print
- Dimensions
- Image: 40 × 30 in. (101.6 × 76.2 cm)
Frame: 43 × 33 × 2 in. (109.22 × 83.82 × 5.08 cm)
- Accession Number
- AC1997.24.1
- Collecting Area
- Photography
- Curatorial Notes
Los Angeles–based artist Catherine Opie made this unflinching self-portrait as part of a series documenting the gay and lesbian S and M community. A crude image of two girls holding hands in front of a house, scratched into Opie’s back, represents the wish for a spouse of her choice and the "traditional" desires of home and family. By using a certain solemnity and formality borrowed from historical studio portraiture, Opie upends the norms of identity and sexuality.
- Selected Bibliography
- Irmas, Deborah. This Is Not a Selfie: Photographic Self-Portraits from the Audrey and Sydney Irmas Collection. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2016.