People want to see themselves in art

“… people want to see themselves in art. They want to see their children and their mothers and their selves. In the same way that those people who made cave paintings of handprints wanted to say, “Here I am” …I do not think that much has changed. Here I am, here’s my hand, my body, myself. Human beings’ sense of the brevity of life makes it even more important to leave a record of their own. To tell their story to the future.”

— Chantal Joffe, 2021

Written in an email to Katy Hessel and quoted in the wonderful book The Story of Art Without Men by Katy Hessel, p449.