The creation of each piece is an effort to understand the self, deeper than I had whilst creating the previous piece. The portraits I have created offer magnification to the self, and windows to the viewer. Inspired by the human form, I seek to create based on perception and true observation. While offering an inner dialogue to myself to digitally create what I physically and mentally see, I invite viewers to create a new dialogue and relate with how they may be perceived and observed as well.
Self-portraits have become important to me as I create art with underlying themes of duality. As the self refuses to be monolithic, it becomes a foundational and most primary subject to depth. I believe that the self, its projections, and its desires contribute to every other aspect of creation, whether consciously or unconsciously. Self-portraiture is perception versus observation, creator versus created, feelings versus affect, and various other dual concepts.

Ciara Jackson is a senior Art Therapy major with a Psychology minor at Cedar Crest College. Born and raised in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, she started her art pursuit on a small digital device at age 11. Her affinity for observation and portraiture as taught by her undergraduate professors are most often translated to her media focus in digital art. Within the education of art therapy and creative healing, she strives to translate innermost feelings with artistic representations of the self and human affect.