This work focuses on a conception of autobiography and the self-portrait as refractive mirrors within which the artist interprets themselves to their own consciousness as well as to the world. We emphasise questions of memory, temporality, self interpretation and self presentation, in order to highlight the imaginative essence of the hermeneutic processes in which the autobiography and the self portrait consist and through which they can be related to similar processes in Ifa divination.

In order to achieve this, we focus on a specific example of human experience as demonstrated in autobiography and as suggested in one of van Gogh’s self portraits. This aspect is the depiction of conceptions and experiences of divergence and convergence understood in terms of the configuration of the self and its experiences. This conception of divergence and convergence is interpreted in concrete and abstract terms. The concrete and abstract dimensions of this concept are developed through myths from the Ifa system and the understanding of this concept, in its abstract form, is applied to an exploration of examples of the visual and verbal art of van Gogh.