Name: TVO Arts - Evan Penny, Old Self: Portrait of the Artist as He Will (Not) Be
Description: With some tricks borrowed from movie magic, this sculptor creates a self-portrait so real it can hardly be believed.

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The idea that all representations of the real involve an artifice is at the root of my work.

What makes Penny’s sculpture so unique?


What is the artist trying to tell us with Old Self?


With some tricks borrowed from movie magic, this sculptor creates a self-portrait so real it can hardly be believed. 

TVO Arts - Evan Penny, Old Self: Portrait of the Artist as He Will (Not) Be 

Narrator (00:02):
Art can make us question reality in ways our eyes can hardly even believe. This is "Old Self, Portrait of the Artist as He Will (Not) Be, Variation 1". It was created in 2011 by Evan Penny, a Canadian artist known for his spectacularly realistic creations. It's so unbelievably lifelike it may even make you feel a bit uneasy. So why is it so hard to look away from?
Giovanna (00:32):
I felt like he was familiar. I felt like I was looking at somebody sort of on the street.
Ashley (00:39):
I can't tell if it's a picture or a sculpture really.
Taija (00:42):
I want to be totally honest. I just want to touch it. That's what I want. I'm curious to see what it would feel like
Narrator (00:51):
At twice life size, the sculptural bust (that's right, it's a sculpture) depicts a man in his seventies or eighties. He wears a plain T-shirt, some stylish round glasses, and a rather contemplative expression on his face. What's he thinking about? Stepping closer. The details are mind boggling. Stubble grows whisker by whisker from the figure's, chin and cheeks. His wrinkled skin is marked by blemishes and stippled with tiny pores. It looks soft warm. Even the sculpture appears astonishingly real, like you might catch it blinking if you stare long enough.
(01:29):
The work is actually a self-portrait, but it doesn't capture Penny as he looked when he made the sculpture. Rather, it's an imaginary portrayal of the artist as he may look years in the future when he's an old man. "Old Self" belongs to a two-part series with its counterpart, "Young Self, Portrait of the Artist as He Was (Not). Here the artist reimagines what he looked like as a young man just entering adulthood. The pair are often exhibited together. Representing the bookends of Penny's adult life envisioned from a time in between.
Evan Penny (Artist) (02:02):
The sculpture of "Old Self"and "Young Self" are linked. You can't have one without the other.
Taija (02:12):
Art is just another way to experience another person, and I think it's pretty cool that with this particular piece we get to experience his viewpoint of himself.
Giovanna (02:21):
It makes me think of a modern day approach to a Renaissance painting. So in a sense, he's sort of immortalized himself.
Narrator (02:29):
Evan Penny was born in 1953. His father was a missionary doctor in South Africa, and the Penny family moved frequently immigrating to Canada. In 1964, penny attended the Alberta College of Art where he studied sculpture, and he began making and exhibiting realistic sculptures of the human form in the late seventies and early eighties.
Evan Penny (Artist) (02:51):
For some reason, I've always been interested in sculpture, but I think the core motivation comes from something even more basic, which is that I like to build things three dimensionally.
Narrator (03:03):
At the same time that he was growing his own art practice, penny began working in special effects for the film and television industry where he created prostheses, body doubles, and props for films like X-Men, Nixon and Legends of the Fall. His work was even nominated for an Emmy. Through his experience with special effects, penny became skilled using materials like human hair and fleshy silicone to enhance the illusion of life. Eventually, he began incorporating these techniques in his own sculptures to staggering effect.
Evan Penny (Artist) (03:37):
That allowed me to create a much more illusionistic image, much more realistic, which allowed me then to juxtapose that against the artificial reality of that object. So the idea that all representations of the real involve an artifice is at the root of my work.
Narrator (03:58):
Penny is associated with an art movement known as 'hyperrealism'. Hyperrealism is considered an advancement of 'photorealism', such as we see in the paintings of Mary Pratt, drawing on our familiarity with high resolution imagery and digital manipulation. Hyperrealism is a style that creates lifelike works that simulate a new reality. Though Penny's sculptures are certainly realistic, he actually considers realism more of a tool than a goal in itself.
Evan Penny (Artist) (04:29):
The goal of my sculpture has never been realism. I've never thought of myself as a realist. I use realism. My interest is in questioning what we assume to be real.
Narrator (04:43):
Much of his work distorts the human body in ways we're accustomed to seeing only on screens, but never in our physical space, which is what makes it so startling.
Evan Penny (Artist) (04:53):
You can get vertigo, you can feel your heartbeat rise, your blood pressure or your skin becoming flush. Those sorts of physical responses to this thing that on the one hand is very real and convincing, and on the other hand is doing something that it really should not be doing.
Giovanna (05:15):
It messes with your brain and your perception and your eyes want to make sense of it because it's almost like you're seeing devil.
Christina (05:22):
I think seeing it and experiencing in person, it would just give you goosebumps in the best way possible.
Narrator (05:28):
For much of his career, Penny sculpted his subjects the old fashioned way, working long hours with a live model in his studio. But he found the more time he spent with his subject capturing greater and greater detail, the more neutral his sculpture's expression became. So he began exploring a new process as a way to embed a sense of the moment in his portraits.
(05:50):
"Old Self" and "Young Self" both started with a 3D photographic scan of the artist's body. He brought a photograph from his youth as well as a picture of his father into the scanning studio to help mentally transport himself to the different ages as he was being photographed, the resulting three-dimensional form was milled by machine from hard foam. He then made a mold of the foam model and cast a copy in clay sculpting its overall form as well as surface details like wrinkles and pores. This was again, molded and cast this time in thin layers of pigmented silicone to build up color details like skin tones and blemishes. Next, the hair was punched stranded by strand into the silicone. Finally, the cast resin eyes were installed and the clothing and accessories were fitted, fabricated, and applied.
Evan Penny (Artist) (06:45):
A sculpture like "Old Self" might be somewhere between 150 and 200 hours to complete
Narrator (06:54):
For "Old Self" and "Young Self", Penny imagined himself far in the future and far in the past. In order to explore the ways we perceive ourselves, especially the crucial role photographs play in forming the way we see ourselves in the past, present, and future,
Evan Penny (Artist) (07:12):
Any idea we have of who we were or how we looked when we were young is shaped and defined by photography, and I would argue that even who we're going to become is shaped by photography.
Taija (07:26):
I do think this concept is really interesting because especially now with social media, I feel like sometimes we don't even know who we are or who we perceive ourselves as.
Giovanna (07:36):
It's so interesting to me that he not only reflected on who he was in the past, but who he will still become and who he is yet to be.
Narrator (07:43):
Pictures have a tremendous influence over how we see ourselves in the world, even though old self is a complete fiction, penny has said the work has changed his self-image.
Evan Penny (Artist) (07:54):
Of all the sculptures I've done, the making of "Old Self" changed me the most. I can now imagine and see myself as an old person
Narrator (08:03):
For the finishing touch. A black and white photo portrait of the sculpture is often exhibited alongside it. The photo seems to show a living, breathing person. It appears like proof that this man who's purely an invention of the artist's imagination exists out there in the world. There's photographic evidence. After all, this final gesture makes it clear that photographs may not be the reliable documents of reality that we mistake them for.
Evan Penny (Artist) (08:32):
One of the attributes we've always given to photography is that it represents the truth and progressively, especially now with the digital revolution, we've become aware that in fact, that's not the case. I think we all understand how photography lies. We may not understand to what extent
Narrator (08:52):
Filters. Photoshop. Computer generated images. We're regularly encountering pictures that present all manners of distortion, manipulation, and invention. Images are just as malleable as the artist's clay. They're as deceptive as silicone. By making the unreal comes so vividly alive. Penny's work reminds us that so much of our visual world contains some degree of illusion. Indeed, it's becoming harder and harder to believe your eyes.
(09:27):
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Evan Penny — Portrait of the Artist as He Will (Not) Be

Old Self (Portrait of the Artist as He Will (Not) Be, Variation 1)

This is Old Self: Portrait of the Artist as He Will (Not) Be, Variation #1, created by Evan Penny in 2011. The Toronto-based artist is known around the world for his spectacularly lifelike creations — like this one — that cause viewers to question their own eyes.At twice life-size, the artwork depicts a man in his 70s or 80 with an absolutely mind-boggling level of detail, from the stubble on his cheeks to the pores in his skin. The work is actually a self-portrait, but it doesn’t capture Penny as he looked when he made it. Rather, he’s imagined what he may look like years in the future, when he’s an old man.

Old Self (Portrait of the Artist as He Will (Not) Be, Variation 1)Old Self (Portrait of the Artist as He Will (Not) Be, Variation 1)

Evan Penny

What do you think you’re looking at?

Old Self (Portrait of the Artist as He Will (Not) Be, Variation 1)