Joan Semmel’s Heads (2007–13) feature self-portraits of the artist. Unlike Semmel’s previous self-images, in these works she paints just her face. Intimate in scale and rendered in a variety of styles, these paintings adopt both the realism of her earlier With Camera works (2001–06), as well as the blurring of her Shifting Images compositions (2006–13). In a recent interview, Semmel elaborated on her decision to begin to paint the Heads. She outlined, “The way I started doing the heads was by taking those pictures in the mirror, and even though I didn’t usually use the heads I got it in the mirror because I’d hold the camera at waist level. Not always, but sometimes, so I got the face. Then I would take the heads off that picture—I didn’t shoot for the head, but I like the head that I got.”
