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The Muse Portrait Database

We invite you to read a sample of portraits from our various projects. If you have any comments about the portraits or would like to know how to write your own self-portrait, please contact us by emailing here.

Search our portraits to discover what other people around the world think and feel about: empathy, perfection, war, loneliness, Africa, hair, Einstein, work, poetry, family, sleep, memory, curiosity, dancing...

New Arrivals from the United Arab Emirates

A Guide to the Self Portrait: Hesam

A Self Portrait: 'AI'

Why My Life Is Like Spagetti: 'S.M.'

A Self Portrait: 'S.S.'



A Why an educated Russian works as a cleaner in Oxford
Abbey Chicken How the world changes when a woman falls in love with a woman
Adam Sanford How life no longer feels like sitting through an intermission
Adrian White Why a security guard dreams of freedom
AI A Self-Portrait
Alan Cooksley Why being a hairdresser satisfies the need for perfection
Alan Human What a philosopher, certified insane, thinks about his doctors
Alison Brading How an incontinence specialist overcomes obstacles, and feeds ants
Andrew Wilkie Why a medical geneticist, with a taste for the visual and no TV, seeks out solitude
Andy Bell Why a grower of organic vegetables needs to travel the world in search of 'good people'
Anne Chatterton How a practioner of Zen, and sometime artist, lives life as a part of the world
Anonymous The wisdom and the waste brought on by heroin addiction
Anonymous How a music-lover, heavily in debt, faces up to homelessness and uncertainty
Anonymous How to find inspiration in every generation
Anonymous Searching for another life
Anonymous We are so used to getting what we want that any sense of appreciation is lost
Anthony Smith How the President of an Oxford college views his life at the head of public institutions
Athene Reiss Why a school governor wants to empower children
Bi Scott 'Under the winter snow the spring grass grows' (1)
Bi Scott 'Exiled from my future, I have a subdued sense of self' (2)
Brian Edwards How a retired human resources manager copes with being a widower
Buntu Siwisa 'My first name, Buntu, means Humanity'
Caroline Pitcher Caroline Pitcher in conversation with Christina Hardyment
Charlotte Suthrell 'A city becomes a world when one loves one of the inhabitants'
Chris Mason Wham bam, I am superman!
Christopher Whalen What you can discover if you do not drink or dance
David William Jones How a brain tumour can change your life, and how it can have no effect at all
Dawn 'When I pass away I want people to say, "She was a really nice gal...she really helped people." '
Duncan Brown Why I am a liar and would like to be a poet who writes about rage and violence
Edmund Bennett How a dealer in old books decided to act in pantomimes
Ellen Bassani How a woman born without sight found 'another way of living'
Eric Maddern Eric Maddern in conversation with Christina Hardyment
Fabien Turbe Why life as a fisherman is not enough, and how becoming a chef, and having children, might be
Francis Fairweather Why a nurse thinks 'we surely can't be here just to do things for ourselves'
Frank F What to do with the clutter of life
Gary French What wisdom can be obtained from working with the mentally ill
Gary Wilson Not all who wander are lost
Geoff Woods What a person adds when writing about himself to what he says in conversation
Hayley Jade Cannon 'Maybe I need to reconsider where I sit'
Hesam A Guide to the Self-Portrait
Ifeoma Onyefulu Ifeoma Onyefulu in conversation with Christina Hardyment
Jackie Morris Jackie Morris in conversation with Christina Hardyment
Jacqueline Mitton Jacqueline Mitton in conversation with Christina Hardyment
James McBain On using other people's words
James Powell How cucumber hinders the journey from identity to consciousness
Jane Our Indestructible Heart Essence
Jeff Greaves How to come back to life after your children's deaths
Jennifer Richardson How a student 'trapped in a mind I hated' found a new form of communication as a pole dancer in a striptease club
Jesal Patel 'I'm too white to be Indian and too brown to be English'