Narcissism

Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is a condition in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for excessive attention or admiration and a lack of empathy for others. The etymological origin of the word ‘narcissist’ comes from the mythologised tale of Narcissus; a character depicted numerous times in art, notably in paintings by Caravaggio and John William Waterhouse.

These paintings depict a man who falls in love with his own reflection as told in the classical myth. This contributes to the common misunderstanding that narcissism is simply vanity. I aim to challenge this misconception. The work is motivated by my own experience of someone with NPD – my mother.