2005

When I first donned the Groucho nose and glasses in 1996, I knew that something funny was going to happen but I did not know what.

Since then, for 25 years, that guise has taken me on a remarkable journey of self-discovery. Inspired by Marcel Duchamp’s female persona Rrose Sélavy, I created a masculine persona, Marc De Ansar. As my alter-ego, I have enacted crazy and courageous aspects of myself and have explored issues of gender, identity, sexuality, ethnic stereotypes, humor, and more.

By using the comedic face of the jokester, I’ve poked fun at the formality of the staid traditional portrait. Over time, the disguise, the mask, remained the same while underneath it all, I changed.