Michail Parlamas (b. 1977) is a painter based in Athens, Greece. Between 2020 and 2023 he produced ten large-sized “self-portraits” titled “Selfiesh”, a portmanteau of the words selfie and selfish.
These faces sometimes occupy the entire canvas, while sometimes they leave room for the surrounding space to peek through, which is strongly tied to memories of the artist’s past experiences. Based on older studies of self-portraits on phone book pages and distorted iPad selfies, Michail constructs the portrait by gradually adding layer upon layer of disproportionate facial characteristics he gathers on the internet. What initially appears as a self-portrait turns into an analog avatar – a mask or persona that contemporary society impels us to use, purposefully or instinctively, in order to make ourselves socially acceptable.
