The story behind ageing gracefully
When I was 12 years, I was travelling the U.S with my sister, and we were staying at a friend’s house on the beach in Santa Monica.
He had a collection of art, and one of the pieces was a portrait of him of what he would like in later years. It was a scary-looking image, and it had me perplexed as to why he would want that hanging on the wall.
When I asked him, he told me that the idea behind it was that he would look better than the image as he grew older – which kind of made sense.
Years later, on my 30th birthday, I decided to do one of my own art piece, depicting what I would look like in my 40’s.
It turns out I didn’t end up looking like this at all. I’m not a seafaring pirate anymore, and I should have realised that I can’t grow a beard thanks to my part Indonesian genes.
I found this recently when digging up old music I created, which was created around the same time as the self-portrait, which now call Ageing Gracefully.
Image created in Adobe CS3 Illustrator and Photoshop using an old Wacom tablet.
I’m pretty sure I also remember experimenting with Photoshop actions at the time, which I think don’t exist anymore. Which makes the piece hard to replicate.
Song: 80’s Crap – Off the unreleased album, BJ Bliss.
