Self-Portrait (reaching)

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Jess T. Dugan created Self-portrait (reaching) in 2014, and in 2021 they made a new photograph bearing the same title and repeating the same pose, though in an outdoor setting. The 2021 version was included in the Akron Art Museum’s 2026 exhibition of Dugan’s work, and the artist provided the following statement for its label: Making pictures is the way I understand myself and the world around me, and my work is informed by my own identity and experiences. Making self-portraits is a way of sharing who I am with a viewer, which clarifies that I’m part of the communities I’m working within and the conversations I’m having around identity, gender, and sexuality. Perhaps even more importantly, sharing my own story openly and honestly encourages others to share theirs with me in return, which is important to my work and is also something I value deeply as a person. This statement applies equally well to both the 2014 and the 2021 pictures, and provides a strong basis for understanding Dugan’s self-portraiture more broadly. Dugan further explains: “I made this at the Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Colorado in 2014 when I was a visiting artist, and it was the final image in my first book, Every Breath We Drew. I recreated the pose in 2021 in Provincetown, as an intentional reference to the earlier pictures, and that became the final image in my 2022 book Look at me like you love me.” The artist adds that this image has been quite popular, with editions across multiple sizes having entered the collections of the University of New Mexico Art Museum, the Frost Art Museum at Florida International University, Light Work, and the Illinois State Museum, as well as several private collections. In Look at me like you love me, the text immediately preceding Dugan’s 2021 recreation of this pose describes kinship and place through a story of a storm of wind and rain, ending this way: “The storm will pass, I know, and a new morning will come. The darkness and uncertainty of tonight are already only a memory.” Fittingly, both versions of the photograph suggest calm and confidence through Dugan’s closed eyes, relaxed facial expression, gently interlinked fingers, and open and vulnerable posture. The pose also makes the scars from Dugan’s gender-affirming chest masculinization surgery readily visible, conveying the artist’s forthrightness regarding their experiences around gender identity. With scars, tattoos, piercings, and all of their various connotations shared so plainly and combined with an overall feeling of being at ease, the photograph strongly indicates Dugan’s literal and figurative comfort in their own skin.