In this small, vertical self-portrait painting, we confront a tightly cropped face that fills almost the entire panel. A young woman looks straight out at us, her pale, cool-toned skin built from heavy, ridged layers of pinks, whites and greys. Dark, glassy eyes sit in smeared sockets. From each, black tears of pigment seep down her cheeks like running mascara, catching on an uneven paint surface. Her nose and mouth are rubbed raw in hot rose tones, suggesting chapped skin or recent crying. Her lips are softly closed, neither smiling nor frowning, and strands of dark hair frame the face against a deep brown backdrop. The neck dissolves into rough brushwork at the bottom edge, giving the impression that the woman is emerging from, or sinking back into, the paint itself. The impasto is so thick that the surface reads almost like scarred skin, inviting touch as much as sight. Lisa Stokes is a British painter based in Plymouth, England whose work often mines memories of childhood, family, and loss. This self-portrait distils those themes into a single, confrontational image. Trained in graphic design and medical illustration, and later apprenticed to the painter Robert Lenkiewicz, she brings an anatomical precision to the placement of features even as she lets the paint break down into crusts, drips, and smears. The combination of oil and graphite adds grit and darkness around the eyes, intensifying the sense of insomnia, grief, or exhaustion. Painted in 2013, when the artist was exhibiting emotionally charged self-portraits in major portrait prizes, this tiny canvas feels like a private counter-image as there is no costume or clown mask here, only the bare face of Stokes registering her own vulnerability. Within the Ruth Borchard Collection’s long tradition of British and Irish self-portraiture, Stokes’s work brings a contemporary, psychologically charged voice that speaks quietly, but insistently about sadness, resilience, and the work of holding oneself together.

“Self-Portrait” by Lisa Stokes (British) - Oil and graphite on canvas / 2013 - Ruth Borchard Collection (London, UK) #WomenInArt #LisaStokes #Stokes #SelfPortrait #artText #art #emotion #ContemporaryArt #WomensArt #WomanArtist #WomenArtists #BlueskyArt #ArtoftheDay #bskyart #RuthBorchardCollection