Self portrait with Vincent after Self-Portrait as a Painter
by van Gogh, Tamara Jare, oil on canvas, 2026
This vibrant and boldly expressive self-portrait by Tamara Jare, titled Self portrait with Vincent after Self-Portrait as a Painter (oil on canvas, 2026), is a joyful, contemporary dialogue with Vincent van Gogh’s famous 1887–1888 Self-Portrait as a Painter.
The composition places the artist front and center in a large, dominating close-up. Her face gazes directly at the viewer with calm intensity — strong features, piercing eyes, and a powerful presence rendered in thick, energetic impasto strokes. The skin tones explode with warm pinks, vivid yellows, radiant oranges, and soft lilacs, creating that characteristic luminous, almost glowing quality.
She wears oversized, colorful circular earrings that become strong focal points, their bold turquoise, pink, and other hues echoing across the canvas. Her white shirt opens to reveal a playful yet confident depiction of bare breasts painted as soft, rounded pink forms — a contemporary, unapologetic celebration of the female body that contrasts with the more restrained historical self-portraits.
In her hands she holds a generous painter’s palette overflowing with dabs of pure, saturated color: blues, greens, reds, yellows — a riot of pigment that feels alive and in motion.
To her right stands an easel with a small but unmistakable portrait of Vincent van Gogh himself, borrowed almost directly from his own Self-Portrait as a Painter. The iconic red hair and beard appear in that familiar intense orange-red, set against the yellow-green background, placed on a vividly colored easel frame in magenta, blue, and turquoise tones. Vincent watches over her shoulder — mentor, spiritual companion, fellow passionate colorist.
The entire background and surrounding space bursts with Fauvist-inspired freedom: fiery orange-red walls, acid yellows, emerald greens, deep blues — every inch pulsating with emotional temperature and light rather than realistic description.
Overall, the painting radiates joy, self-assurance, creative lineage, and pure love of paint. It’s simultaneously a homage to Van Gogh’s passionate self-examination and a very modern, feminine reclamation of the artist’s gaze — bold, colorful, fearless, and unapologetically alive. A wonderful conversation across time between two intense painters who both refused to hold back.
by van Gogh, Tamara Jare, oil on canvas, 2026
