Self

“Self” is a play on “selfie” – self love, and the shallow popularity of Instagram, where women of all age harness the power of sexual attraction to gather likes, comments and followers. A false sense of self love, or empowering? Soft porn or admirable beauty? Courageous or cheap?

Along the lines of “Emopop” this was a painting I started a long time ago and didn’t really know how to translate it into the message I wanted, so it changed a few times. I wanted to keep the beautiful face, but make her body obscure. I also wanted to highlight her breasts because that’s the fixation of men. I made them small and insignificant in the painting – because that’s essentially how it should be when looking at women (to me), where their brains and their face are paramount, the rest of the body secondary – however the pixels (squares) and lines are meant to draw your eyes away from her face and toward her tiny breasts which are painted indistinctly.

I’ve signed this painting upside down on purpose, to illustrate the absurdity of the internet, and perhaps to make a point – I see things differently.