Performance artist Amanda Coogan’s self-portrait Medea became part of the National Self-Portrait Collection of Ireland at the University of Limerick in 2003. Silently elegant, cool and composed, perfectly posed and precise, the image would be as much at home in the hallowed corridors of Vogue as at the university. If we were to take the work at face value in this era of Instagram and selfie euphoria, we could easily assume that the artist is a queen sitting confidently on her chaise-longue throne, her gaze intense and still and her sumptuous blue dress cascading to the floor. We might even feel slightly jealous or disgruntled by the obvious glamour and sophistication on display.
