Julie Hefferman: Self-Portrait as Dirty Princess with Tail

I went to the Ackland Art museum in Chapel Hill about a week ago. Of course I was lost when I got inside, because I was looking for the 20th and 21st century art pieces. I finally found the areas of the museum that held the art works that I was looking for, but not until after I got some of the free food that was on display. In the 20th century art room on the first floor there was a very interesting 3-dimensional technological computer piece that was made out of key boards and small, maybe three inch, computer screens. There were also other paintings hanging on the walls that looked like I needed to be a deep thinker or a philosopher to understand. As I walked around the room taking in each piece of art work in slowly, I came across the painting that I have posted above. The name of the painting is Self-Portrait as Dirty princess with tail, by Julie Hefferman. This painting was very disturbing, but beautiful at the same time.

When I got back to my room, I looked on the internet for the painting so I could study it longer and better in the comfort of my own room. But to my dismay I could not find the same picture in the museum, so the picture that I have up with my paper is not the exact same as the picture that is hanging in the Ackland Art museum. The picture in the museum is larger, and shows the princess standing in a ball-room. The tail had more animals lying around, and there was a giant dead squid coming from where the tentacles are at the bottom of the picture. The walls of the ballroom in the painting, had paintings on them that were covered by shadows, but one of the paintings on the wall, was a picture of an open fetal pig that is resembles the one that I used in my college biology lab for dissection. The chandelier is not as close to her head as it is in this picture, and the painting is gloomier, but the flowers surrounding the tail are very bright.
Julie Hefferman is an American painter. She went to University of California, at Santa Cruz, C.A. and graduated with a B.F.A. with honors in painting and printmaking. Then she attended Yale School of Art, in New Haven, C.T., and graduated with a M.F.A in painting. All of the Julie Hefferman paintings that come up on the computer look very similar. They are gloomy looking along the outside of the paintings, and the center or main focal points in the paintings are very bright. Most of the paintings titles start off with self-portrait.

I still have not come up with the exact reason of why this painting captured my attention in the museum, but there are things in it that stick out in my mind. The contrast of colors and tones may have been what made me stop and look harder and longer at this picture than others, or maybe the dead animals that surround the tail of the princess and her colors. Most of the time people do not think of death with bright colors. The fetal pig that is in the wall the original painting in the Ackland museum is interesting to me also because I took special interest in the dissection of the pigs when I was in biology lab. The caption on the wall beside the picture from the author, said that the painting represented the destructiveness of the wealthy of the time. So I guess that is what all the dead animals represent in the picture. The wealthy is being represented by the princess, and the tail represents the beauty and power that people had at the time, but also destructiveness and greed of the wealthy at that time.

There were other paintings in the museum that interested me, but none of them compared to the interest that this painting employed in me. The picture is beautiful, but has so much about it that makes it odd. Maybe I like it so much because like me, at first glance I am just like every other person walking around campus, but if anyone bothers to take a closer look at me and what I do and experience on a daily basis then I am similar to the picture. I challenge what is normal, and expected of me and this picture of Self-Portrait as Dirty Princess with Tail challenges what is expected to be seen in the picture.