Art.sy Insight: Cindy Sherman the painter

Crucial to Cindy Sherman’s practice is the fact that her early training was in painting, not photography. “I’m good at using my face as a canvas... I’ll see a photograph of a character and try to copy them onto my face,” she says. Whether “painted” as a film star or socialite, clown or cowgirl, Sherman uses her face as a means through which to tell someone else’s story. “I am trying to make other people recognize something of themselves rather than me,” she says.