Drawing on Douglas Hofstadter’s concept of the strange loop, Davidson uses the self-portrait as a point of departure to examine the unstable and continually shifting nature of identity. Hofstadter proposes that the self is not a fixed or singular entity, but an ongoing recursive process, continuously shaped through memory, perception and our relationships with others.

Developed through Davidson’s photographic emulsion process, the works deliberately disrupt photography’s conventional role as a medium of representation and self-description. Beginning as figurative self-portraits, the images are physically lifted, stretched, torn and reconfigured across multiple surfaces, gradually shifting from recognisable likenesses into ambiguous and abstract forms.

As the image fragments and transforms, the self-portrait moves beyond depiction to become an investigation into the structures through which identity is produced. Through material disruption the works suggest that the self is not stable or complete but continuously constructed through visible and invisible systems that shape how we experience ourselves and the world.