Un-Self-Portrait: The Old Highlife
by Beston Barnett
acrylic and stain on plywood, 4 ft. x 4 ft.
Beston: I painted this from a photo Andrea Guerrero took while we were in Ghana: originally I was in the picture, but I painted myself out (was I making a goofy face?): thus the title. As in Chrysalis, I used the dremel tool to incise the rays around Agyemang's (left) and Roadmaster's (right) heads and to carve out the letters.
Scroll below for more miscellanea...
Here's a photocopy of the original photo from which the "Un-Self-Portrait" was made. There's an earlier idea for an incised design sketched over it: the adinkra symbol "Gye Nyame", which translates roughly as "God is the winner!"
This is an alternate pose. Agyemang and Roadmaster are sitting on the steps in front of Shekinah Studios. Shekinah was an amazing place - an ADAT with only six tracks functioning, a blistering hot isolation booth, three microphones, intermittent electricity, and no guitar strings - but it managed to run 24 hours a day and churn out the "Hip-Life" hits that played on the radio. During one night recording session, there were two mothers and four small children sleeping under the mixing board.
