On Tuesday 20 February the latest one-man show of work by the Dutch artist Philip Akkerman opens at the Guido Costa Projects gallery in via Mazzini 24, Torino.

Almost unique in the panorama of contemporary painting, Akkerman has dedicated himself unerringly to the self-portrait in all its myriad forms. Over the years this steadfast, ascetic artist has developed a highly sophisticated and bold pictorial technique, which he has charged with the conjectural drive and openly meditative spirit of his work.

Portraying oneself in an attempt to transform one’s own private microcosmic world into a mirror of everything is an essentially spiritual journey across a landscape of abstraction and fable, requiring resolute self-control and a perfect understanding of the self. As with all traditional practices, the art of the selfportrait involves plumbing one’s innermost depths to discover new pages or a new language of signs to retell the story.

When observing sequentially the 2314 self-portraits executed to date, the viewer is faced with a broad choice of readings. The most immediate concerns external physical changes due to aging and the tide of fashions; a more studied approach sees the influence of other artists surface in certain periods, or the domination of a specific palette; the most complex readings are guided by the slow alchemy of the pictorial material. Delving into the work as a whole leads the viewer to discern fleeting sentimental revelations, or subtle mood twists.

In contrast, the dimensions have over the years remained immutable from one painting to the next as the artist explores the possibilities inherent in a limited selection of formats. This rigorous attention to method also is also applied as the drawing on paper develops into the finished oil painting on board, with an occasional excursion to explore the fragile, bygone world of egg tempera.

The facial expression in these invariably three-quarter portraits is always slightly enigmatic, never smiling. The resemblance is not always clear, neither is the compositional balance within the picture plane, which is nevertheless played out within precise spatial limits.

To date, neither a smile, nor expressions of sadness or anger have ever crept onto Akkerman’s face. These self-portraits could perhaps best be defined as ‘pensive’ if it were not for the donning of a mane of hair, calottes, turbans or any of a vast assortment of other headwear, to decorate and complement his head.

Like a journey around his room, Akkerman leads us into parallel worlds, where we come across exotic, grotesque and psychedelic imagery, occasionally rubbing shoulders with a style reminiscent of that of the old Flemish masters.

Over the years, he has almost inevitably refined his technique, culminating in his most recent work, whose almost monochrome examples of pure pictorial virtuosity are dominated by miniscule variations in texture and form.

Were On Kavara a painter, he would perhaps produce similar work. For those who can perceive their essence, Akkerman is providing us with shards of history – above all the history of costume. But he is also laying down a history of art and culture in a never-ending series of jocular quotations. Compared with his early work of the 80’s, which show a clear influence of northern expressionism, his paintings have become less gestural; we can now feel a history of painting emerging from the underlying matter. This is especially evident in the bold, black and pink self-portraits of the last few years.

Investigating Philip Akkerman’s self-portraits we discover how brilliantly they bear witness to the paradox that although identical they are inexorably different from each other.

The Akkerman exhibition in Turin comprises thirty self-portraits, chosen from his oeuvre of the last ten years. It provides us with a glimpse of some of the artist’s many souls, obviously leaving many out. The ideal exhibition would include the whole of this super organism as it meanders through life, revealing the super-work in all its parts. We have settled for this.

The exhibition will be open to the public during galley opening times until 28 April 2007.

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The work of Philip Akkerman (Vaasssen, 1957) is present in many museums and painting collections throughout the world. He has exhibited in one-man and group shows in Europe, Japan and the United States. Bearing in mind the scale of his oeuvre, this exhibition in Turin provides us with a rare opportunity to see a sizeable cross-section of his work in Italy. Philip Akkerman is represented by Guido Costa Projects in Italy, Bob van Orsouw in Switzerland, the Torch Gallery in Holland and by Andrew Mummery Gallery in England.