The painting expands on the theme of self-portraiture during the COVID and post-COVID times, when artists, along with everyone else, were forced to exist and work in physical and social isolation. This experience prompted Zbyněk Sedlecký to investigate and bring fresh relevance to one of the oldest genres in painting – the self-portrait. The artificial nature of temporary social restrictions, measures and regulations found expression in the "artifice" of introspective explorations. The author consciously masks and transforms himself with white facial hair and pieces of historical attire. Thus, he stages an academic ambience in the painting, a kind of "painting noir," tied to the reverberation of a significant life experience caused by a viral pandemic that awakened mass-spreading fear and anxiety; just like the plague once did.