2024 ShowOff! Artwork Alistair Shim

Self Portrait

Self Portrait is a block print of a sacrificial lamb with its throat cut and bleeding. A quote attributed to Sappho, "What cannot be said / will be wept", is carved above and below the lamb's weeping face. This print represents a part of myself that cannot be verbalized accurately, which exists as an abstraction most closely described as the deep-seated grief and resentment that has been placed upon me by the world, and the circumstances that I was born to, through my race, my sexuality, my transsexuality, and everything that is beyond the reach of my control, which manifests as a grieving acceptance, in the same way a lamb cannot fight for itself.