Painting titled "Self-Portrait As Mr…" by Wilf Tilley, Original Artwork, Oil Mounted on Wood Panel

Self-Portrait As Mr. Worldly Wiseman (2016) Painting by Wilf Tilley

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Original Artwork (One Of A Kind) Painting, Oil / Gouache / Ink on Canvas

Artworks classification

One of a kind (OOAK / Original Artwork)

One-of-a-kind works of art are also known as “OOAK” artworks. This means that every work of art is unique and there will never be another identical one.
Dimensions Height 11.8in, Width 7.9in
Framing This artwork is not framed
Categories Figurative Spirituality

This work, now lost, was intended as an illustration to The Pilgrim's Progress (1678), a Christian allegory by John Bunyan. Since I am not a Christian, I see the work – in the manner of Viktor Frankl – as a narrative search for meaning in life. Douglas Adam's take on this, that the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything is 42, nicely circumvents Bunyan's religion and Frankl's psychology. However, it occurred to me that I might illustrate The Pilgrim's Progress using myself as the model of all those characters, like Mr. Worldly-Wiseman, who try to distract Pilgrim from his voyage of self discovery – given that we often undermine our own best efforts. Unfortunately – perhaps appropriately – the work was damaged and later destroyed. Ink and oil on gesso over canvas on wood panel, approximately 30 x 20 x 2 cm. The work can be compared with the more recent A Brief Visit To Anhedonia In The Year Of The Great Pandemic since that also references the Slough of Despond in Bunyan.

About this artwork: Classification, Techniques & Styles

Oil

Paint consisting of pigments bound with linseed oil or carnations. The traditional technique consists of superimposing layers of paint increasingly rich in oil for a solid and durable hanger.

Gouache

The substances are diluted with water and rendered pasty and opaque by the addition of gum and honey. The colors become opaque and can, therefore, be superimposed, which makes one paint with gouache as with oil. The gouache is recommended by its bright, fresh and delicate tones.

Ink

A strongly tinted liquid or paste that is used to mark paper or other printable materials. The design is done manually with a slab, feather, brush, or straightener.

Figurative

Figurative and colorful painting having taken the liberty of including all forms of art without border of cultural genre and geographic origin, without hierarchy of values between high and subculture.

Technic Painting

Painting is an art form of painting on a surface by aesthetically applying colored fluids. Painters represent a very personal expression on supports such as paper, rock, canvas, wood, bark, glass, concrete and many other substrates. Work of representation or invention, painting can be naturalistic and figurative, or abstract. It can have narrative, descriptive, symbolic, spiritual, or philosophical content.

Wilf Tilley

Japan

Wilf Tilley (Prof. Michael W. Miller) was born in the North of England and began his career as an actor, age 16, with the National Youth Theatre at The Old Vic in a production of[...]

Wilf Tilley (Prof. Michael W. Miller) was born in the North of England and began his career as an actor, age 16, with the National Youth Theatre at The Old Vic in a production of Antony and Cleopatra in which Helen Mirren played Cleopatra and he carried a spear. “Wilf Tilley” (a combination of parental names) was part-adopted for a first solo exhibition at the AIR Gallery, London, when he was 27. Following an MA degree at the Royal College of Art, London, an interest in the neuro-anatomical drawings of Leonardo da Vinci led, via the Open University, to research on neuronal modelling in the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics in the University of Oxford. He was a Fellow of St. Catherine's College, Oxford, and after a two-year Fellowship in the International Center for Medical Research, Kobe, was a founder member, then senior adviser at the RIKEN Brain Science Institute, where he designed a brain science exploratorium (BrainBox). Wilf has held eight solo exhibitions, participated in group exhibitions internationally, and held a first retrospective in Japan (The Neuro-mytheologian And Other Works), in 2003. A novel (The Ladyboy Murders) was shortlisted for the Impress Prize for New Writers in 2015. In November/December 2017, he held a second retrospective at the Frederick Harris Gallery, Tokyo. And a recent portrait (Manami-san) is part of the New Light Art Prize Exhibition in the UK, touring five galleries nationally (2023-2024).