Cycle of Four

A Self-Portrait Series: Four Large-Scale Drawings

January 2021 | Copenhagen

Drawing as Inquiry, Drawing as Becoming

To draw oneself is to engage in an ongoing dialogue with the unknown. Self-portraiture is not a search for likeness, but a method of excavation, a way of bringing to the surface the many selves that coexist within. The face is merely an entry point—what emerges through the act of drawing are not fixed identities, but fluid states of being.

This series of four large-scale self-portraits, created over the course of a month, follows the rhythms of my menstrual cycle, mapping internal transformations onto paper. The cycle is a biological clockwork, but also a psychological terrain, shifting perception, energy, and emotional intensity week by week. It moves like the seasons—spring, summer, autumn, winter—a microcosm of nature’s larger rhythms.

Each drawing stands as an individual exploration, yet together, they form a continuous movement, a complete cycle, returning to the beginning only to begin again.

The Four States of the Self

The Human Seed – The Awakening (Week 1 | Follicular Phase | Spring)

Drawing, pastel & acrylic on paper, 165 x 147 cm, 2021

The moment before becoming—the tension between potential and emergence. The egg, the seed, the unmanifested state of life. In this phase, everything is waiting, brimming with unseen possibilities, on the verge of movement.

The face in this drawing is suspended in stillness, cradled within the warmth of its own existence before stepping into the world. It is the beginning of the cycle, where energy stirs but has yet to break free. The linework is soft, forming a protective cocoon, a space of renewal and quiet force.

Enter the Exit – The Transition (Week 2 | Ovulation Phase | Summer)

Drawing, pastel & paint on paper, 194 x 145 cm, 2021

This is the phase of motion, expansion, and transformation—when life is at its most heightened, when the body moves forward without hesitation. To exist in this state is to be caught in the flow of time, where stillness is no longer an option.

In this drawing, the body emerges with urgency, no longer contained, no longer holding back. The marks are dynamic, almost restless, capturing the sensation of transition—the crossing from one state into another, the need to adapt, to move, to keep pace with life’s forward pull. There is an unsettling duality here, between exhilaration and instability, between power and the fear of what lies ahead.

Trinity – The Multiplicity of the Self (Week 3 | Luteal Phase | Autumn)

Drawing, pastel & wall paint on paper, 147 x 110 cm, 2021

The self is never singular—it is layered, intersecting, shifting. There is no one identity, but a constant interplay of past, present, and future selves. This drawing embodies that multiplicity, the awareness that we are composed of fragments of memory, inherited traces, and the unknown potential of who we may yet become.

The concept of the threefold self appears:

• In biology, we are made of three parts—one from our mother, one from our father, and one that is uniquely ours.

• In spirituality, the Trinity appears as a fundamental structure: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in Christianity, the Mind, Body, and Soul in metaphysics.

• In human experience, we are simultaneously who we were, who we are, and who we are becoming.

In this drawing, the meditative state is layered, neither singular nor separate, but existing in a constant state of fusion and dissolution. It is an exploration of the tension between individuality and universality, between the self as distinct and the self as part of something greater.

Light of Mars – The Fire of Release (Week 4 | Menstrual Phase | Winter)

Drawing, pastel & wall paint on paper, 147 x 110 cm, 2021

The final phase—the moment of destruction and renewal. This is the fire that clears the path for what comes next.

In ancient times, warriors bled in battle, marking their sacrifice and strength. In this phase, the body enacts its own cycle of release, purging, letting go, preparing for what is to come. There is power in this moment—not in resistance, but in surrender to the process, in allowing what must end to end.

This drawing carries that fire, the rage and exhaustion, the power and vulnerability of the final days of the cycle. There body is charged, not just with emotion, but with the undeniable reality of change. It is a stage of transformation through release, of embracing the bleed so that something new may rise from the empty space.

These four drawings are not simply representations of my appearance. They are records of shifting states, an attempt to grasp the ways in which the self expands, contracts, resists, moves, surrenders.

Each portrait is a moment, but together, they form a complete cycle, looping endlessly from emergence to transformation to dissolution—only to begin again.

Just as my body moves through its phases, so does my self. And with every new cycle, a new Presence emerges.