So...

I then made a decision that I wanted my paintings to have recognizable images - a mixture of this and abstraction perhaps. I don't know what I thought the self-portraits were. Anyway, I made this serious decision and this painting was my first attempt at this.

It's ridiculously amateurish - I borrowed some ways of doing things from Basquiat, in a very clumsy way. I painted over it. The significant thing for me is the decision as regards recognizable imagery.