Yellow (Self-Portrait)

For more than two decades beginning in 1985, Liz Rideal employed the products of pre-digital, photo-booth vending machines as her primary source material. Initially exploiting the vertical, four-image strips individually as singular self-portraits, or collaged together as units of larger, mosaic-like compositions, Rideal increasingly moved toward abstraction. The elongated grid of Yellow (Self-Portrait) marked a turning point in this progression. Randomly tossing her hair for each automatic exposure, Rideal creates abstract gestures (which she likens to flung paint) framed by the photo booth’s yellow-curtained backdrop. The end result of her performance—a mash-up of conceptual art and abstract expressionism—diverts the viewer’s eye from the individual photo strips to an allover composition. In her subsequent body of work, Rideal focused on draperies, evacuating all subjects except for this most basic element of photo booths.