Self-Portrait in a Quagmire

Oil on canvas by Julie Heffernan (American, born 1956), titled Self-Portrait in a Quagmire. The work shows Heffernan’s recurring self-portrait figure placed within a dense, theatrical landscape of flowers, animals, architecture and natural overgrowth.

2000–2003
Oil on canvas
70.5" H × 68" W
(179.1cm H × 172.7cm W)

About the Maker:
Julie Heffernan is an American painter known for large-scale, highly detailed self-portraits that combine figure painting, landscape, allegory and art-historical references. Born in 1956, she received her BFA from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and her MFA from the Yale School of Art. Her work uses the technical language of historical European painting to address contemporary ideas of identity, environment, memory and social anxiety. Her artwork has been described by the writer Rebecca Solnit as "a new kind of history painting" and by The New Yorker as "ironic rococo surrealism with a social-satirical twist."