Self-Portrait by Duncan Hannah

“We’ve been talking for a few days now. You’re obviously a very smart guy. I don’t have to tell you about your work. You already know. I’ll just say this… you’re selling yourself short in an attempt to be stylish. There’s something of the zeitgeist in your work that weakens it. You’re probably worried about having a look. Don’t worry about that. That will come by itself. Just work hard, and you will evolve into yourself naturally.”

“Don’t choose who to be—grow into yourself through hard work. All will be revealed. I guarantee that if you paint a still life, it will have your personality in it. You have to trust that. The best things I saw by you today were your self-portrait drawings, because they had no artifice. . . . If I was you, I would strip away all your flashy gimmicks and dare to make “plain” paintings. You will be original, you have to take it on faith. You know what to do. You’ll get where you need to go with time and hard work.”