George Makary

Autoportrait

My self-portrait portrays the fragility of identity as a single cadmium thread, pulled at tightly and held closely towards the chest in a dualistic posture. The posture resembles that of Pharaoh- autonomous and a god in his own right- full of life, and the posture of the dead during their mummification- buried and forgotten, a dichotomy of timelessness and temporality. The infusion of Ancient Egyptian ideals acts as a vehicle for the my ethnic identity as a Copt, and is further reinforced by the use of gold leaf, common to both Coptic iconography and the Fayum mummy portraits of the first to third centuries. The figure, exhausted, stands in a “paradisiacal garden” in which he indulges in a fragile (and tense) exploration of the intersections of his faith and culture. In Arabic, a proverb from Ecclesiastes is sprawled behind him, “As for that which is far off and exceedingly deep, who can find it out?” (7:24).