'Auto-Portrait' by Chila Kumari Singh Burman
This audio clip describes the painting Auto-Portrait by Chila Kumari Singh Burman (b.1957).
It has been created for use as part of our primary school resource, The Superpower of Looking, in order to support pupils with blindness or visual impairment to take part in the lessons.
Explore the painting further in our resource, A Pop Art self-portait by Chila Kumari Singh Burman.
Full audio description text
Called Auto-Portrait and made in 1992, this stunning “selfie” of the artist Chila Kumari Singh Burman, is printed on paper. It’s about 1.5m tall and just under a metre wide, outlined with a narrow white edge. The face of the young woman jumps out at us from a black background.
She’s wearing a rounded hat with a wide brim; she cups her face in her hands and looks directly towards us. Every centimetre of her skin and even her hat is covered by a second skin – a patchwork of brightly coloured images of Asian women. Some are in modest, traditional dress, others full of Bollywood bling. Almost all of them wear some kind of head covering – a veil or a top hat - and look out at us too.
The artist’s own eyes are darkened with black eye liner. Her eyes, nose and lips are almost camouflaged by these smaller portraits that are one or two centimetres square and brightly coloured in neon pinks, yellows and white with occasional flashes of blue and green. The jewel colours match the many bangles she wears. These seem to have slipped from her wrists towards her elbows, as she holds up her arms, so that she can cup her face in her hands.
Towards the top of the picture, narrow strips of patchwork, like rays of light, shoot from her hat towards the frame. Her dark hair, set in front of the black background is almost invisible, so that the hat appears to hover above her. The artist, her lips closed but smiling a little, has a cheeky expression as if knowing full well the impact she makes.
