Skip to main content

Daily Inspiration Quote by Cindy Sherman

"I feel I'm anonymous in my work. When I look at the pictures, I never see myself; they aren't self-portraits. Sometimes I disappear"

About this Quote

Sherman is describing a vanishing act that only looks like self-effacement. Her photos are full of her body, her face, her wigs and prosthetics, yet the "I" keeps slipping away. That tension is the engine of her work: she uses herself as raw material, then refuses the viewer the payoff of biography. In a culture trained to treat the artist as the secret key to the image, Sherman locks that door and hands you a mirror instead.

The line about anonymity lands as a critique of how femininity gets read as a set of interchangeable scripts. Sherman appears as the career girl, the starlet, the housewife, the victim, the grotesque; the point isn't that she can become anyone, it's that the visual economy keeps asking women to be legible in the same few ways. "They aren't self-portraits" is a rebuke to the confessional expectation, especially in photography, where the camera is assumed to capture essence. Sherman shows how easily "essence" can be manufactured with lighting, posture, makeup, a familiar genre cue.

"Sometimes I disappear" isn't mystical; it's structural. The more perfectly she inhabits the codes, the less room there is for an authentic subject to appear. Authorship dissolves into performance, and performance into stereotype. Context matters: coming out of late-70s/80s postmodernism and feminist critique, Sherman makes the most personal tool she has-her own image-into evidence that the personal is already prewritten by culture.

Quote Details

TopicArt
Source
Later attribution: Playful Disruption of Digital Media (Daniel Cermak-Sassenrath, 2018) modern compilationISBN: 9789811018916 · ID: NbFUDwAAQBAJ
Text match: 95.00%   Provider: Google Books
Evidence:
Daniel Cermak-Sassenrath. 6 Playing Many Selves Artists like Cindy Sherman have played ... I feel I'm anonymous in my work ... “ When I look at the pictures , I never see myself ; they aren't self - portraits . Sometimes I disappear ...
Cite

Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Sherman, Cindy. (2026, February 10). I feel I'm anonymous in my work. When I look at the pictures, I never see myself; they aren't self-portraits. Sometimes I disappear. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-feel-im-anonymous-in-my-work-when-i-look-at-the-139157/

Chicago Style
Sherman, Cindy. "I feel I'm anonymous in my work. When I look at the pictures, I never see myself; they aren't self-portraits. Sometimes I disappear." FixQuotes. February 10, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-feel-im-anonymous-in-my-work-when-i-look-at-the-139157/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I feel I'm anonymous in my work. When I look at the pictures, I never see myself; they aren't self-portraits. Sometimes I disappear." FixQuotes, 10 Feb. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-feel-im-anonymous-in-my-work-when-i-look-at-the-139157/. Accessed 4 Apr. 2026.

More Quotes by Cindy Add to List
Cindy Sherman on anonymity and self-portraiture
Click to enlarge Portrait | Landscape

About the Author

Cindy Sherman

Cindy Sherman (born January 19, 1954) is a Photographer from USA.

12 more quotes available

View Profile

Similar Quotes

Gustav Klimt, Artist

We use cookies and local storage to personalize content, analyze traffic, and provide social media features. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media and analytics partners. By continuing to use our site, you consent to our Privacy Policy.