Self-portrait

This is Mário Eloy's last self-portrait and probably the most disturbing of all if we exclude his self-representations during his last hallucinated drawings. The somewhat cézannian structure of the volumes is joined by an eminently expressionist dimension, which is particularly visible in the spatula's stains, the background's undulation and the colourful scarf. This expressionist condition is especially enhanced by the chromatic unreal carmine face that makes it almost like a mask or second skin. The detail of the pipe, an element that could have been taken from Van Gogh's iconography, whom Eloy admired, increases his disquieting look which deviates, fixes and inquires.