SELF2020 hindsight / 366 portraits by Fran Beallor

A Solo Exhibition of Daily Self Portraits drawn through the leap year of the global pandemic

El Barrio’s Artspace PS 109
215 E. 99th Street
New York, NY 10029

Exhibition dates: September 7th – October 1st, 2022

On January 1st, 2020, artist Fran Beallor began her fourth self-portrait-a-day drawing series. Spanning four decades, these four one-year-long series of over 1,200 self-portraits have become an unexpected life journey. But 2020 took Beallor in a new direction no one could predict.

What started in a mood of introspection quickly morphed into something much, much more. Nobody had any idea what the year held in store: global pandemic, rampant confusing disinformation, Black Lives Matter protests, deadly worldwide wildfires fueled by climate change, an election unlike any in history, the unprecedented fastest vaccine development ever.

Beallor’s original idea for SELF 2020 was a personal visual diary of one woman’s life in art. This gave way to a more universal concept as we headed into lockdown in March and our world turned upside down. 366 drawings gave her ample space to explore these themes and more.