Anne Loch

Anne Loch created only a handful of paintings featuring people as subject matter. This self-portrait is an exception. She painted it alongside a painting of a raven. Should we also interpret the raven as a self-portrait? Or are the two artworks supposed to form a pair of portraits, with the raven symbolising an unknown person?

Over the course of her career, Loch increasingly pared down her colour palette until she was painting almost exclusively monochrome paintings on primed canvasses. Whereas the raven and its single-coloured feathers have a natural and animated feel, the artist’s self-portrait seems almost ghostlike.