S(Es)graph/S(Es)gram Abstract Portrait Project
Project Abstract
S(Es)graph/S(Es)gram draws on Sigmund Freud’s concept of the Es (or “id”), the unconscious drive that shapes identity. Each portrait combines two layers: the formal surface of academic research and the hidden pulse of memory or desire. Using CAD simulations, text is treated like woven fabric and dropped onto symbolic objects — totems that stand in for personal stories. These digital forms are then translated into paintings through customised machinery, a process I call Patagraphy, where programmed precision meets the fluidity of the paint medium. The final works are abstract portraits: not likenesses of faces, but transformations of words, memories, and objects into painted form.
About the Artist
Hiroshi Kobayashi
Invitation
If you are part of the Forrest Hall community and are curious to see your research, memory, and symbols translated into abstract form, please complete the short form below to share your contact details and interest in participating.
I am seeking six participants for this call-out. The resulting works will be presented at the Open Studio at Forrest Hall at the end of the residency, and selected pieces will also be included in my upcoming solo exhibition at Gallery Central, NMTAFE (Perth CBD) in 2026.
What I Ask from Participants
Each participant will contribute three items that form the foundation of the work:
- Research Abstract / Bio – representing your social and intellectual identity.
- Object – this can be the object itself, the name of the object, or a photograph of it. The object connects to a personal moment of insight or transformation and functions as a symbolic totem within the work.
- Photographic Image – an image that relates to that personal epiphany or the feeling it evokes.
These items will be discussed and developed further during a short interview.
The Process
Step 1 – Text as Identity: Participants provide or allow me to copy their research abstract, representing social and intellectual identity.
Step 2 – Epiphany as Memory: Through a short interview, participants share a personal moment of sudden insight or transformation.
Step 3 – Totem as Symbol: In the same interview, participants name an object that connects to their epiphany, functioning as a symbolic marker.
Step 4 – Transformation: In CAD simulation, the contributed texts are dropped onto the totem forms, colliding and deforming like a textile.
Step 5 – Set View:
I then set a camera — a station point of vision — and a picture plane, which acts as a temporary frame to stabilise the movement of deformation. The cone of vision defines the pictorial field, translating dynamic motion into a momentary formation that can be perceived.
Step 6 – Composition / View Formation:
From the camera’s viewpoint, the scene is composed within the defined picture plane. The image, formed through perspective, becomes the reference for the painting — a translation from digital motion to pictorial stillness.
Step 7 – Photography as Background:
The photographic image becomes a background layer — the unseen but grounding surface that connects the memory to the material space of painting.
Step 8 – Outcome: The result is an abstract portrait in which layers of social and personal identity are embodied within the texture and materiality of the painted surface. In the CAD environment, each composition is constructed from a fixed camera viewpoint — a symbolic station of vision that defines the picture plane. Traditionally, perspective claims objectivity: an optical system that organises space and assumes a shared view. Yet, like the psychoanalytic structure of the Es, Ego, and Superego, no vision or identity can ever be truly shared or fixed.
Through Patagraphy, this symbolic viewpoint is reinterpreted — not as a position of control, but as a shared field of making. The artist and participants engage equally in a process where text, memory, and material converge. By translating digital simulation into the physical behaviour of paint, the work transforms what seems objective into a tangible, fluid embodiment of lived perception. Abstraction here does not define identity; it reveals its continual formation, allowing each portrait to remain open, shifting, and can be co-owned through the shared act of creation.
Your contribution will help shape this series of abstract portraits and my future practice. I’m also interested in hearing how scholars from different fields reflect on perception, identity, and the unseen structures that shape their work.
