Self Portrait

Artist Ed Fraga (American, born 1956)

Date1982

Mediumoil on panel

DimensionsImage Size: 7 3/4 × 7 in. (19.7 × 17.8 cm) Frame Size: 11 3/4 × 11 in. (29.8 × 27.9 cm)

ClassificationsPainting

Credit LineGift of Rex E. Lamoreaux, 2001

Object numberUAC2416

DescriptionEd Fraga describes the primary goal of his work to be continually self-reflecting his place in the world. As a sculpture, painter, and collage artist Fraga explores the human condition and self-reflection through Western literature, religion, and art history motifs. An artist’s self-portrait is an opportunity for psychological exploration and representation. Wayne State University is fortunate to have several early self-portraits of Ed Fraga in the University Collection documenting his early experiments in self-reflection, figurative representation, and the early origins of man as an artist. These self-portraits range from years 1972-1986.

In this 1982 portrait, Fraga is dead center in the nearly square canvas. Historically, self-portraits by artists became more popular with the availability of mirrors. Pose and expression are powerful symbolic factors in an artist’s self-portrait. His gaze looks unflinchingly forward towards the viewer casual, borderlining disheveled. In this case, there is a sense of intensity and intimacy associated with literally and figurative self-reflection. The flat white background may give the view a feeling that they are voyeurs looking through a window confronted by the figures unflinching eye contact.

Ed Fraga is a Detroit artist through and through. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Wayne State University in 1980 and since has received many prestigious awards with work in the collections of the Detroit Institute of Arts, Cranbrook Art Museum, Flint Institute of Arts. After winning the 2009 Kresge Artist Fellowship, Ed Fraga stated that throughout his career he could never fully commit to leaving Detroit, and as the city continues to develop it has become a more fertile landscape for artists like himself.

Written by Isabelle Lauerman