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Stepping Forward —self portrait
This painting confronts issues of recognizability, deformity, injury and pain. How we feel about our selves, the choices we make about our bodies and the value of individuality. It raises the issues of masking ourselves and the juxtaposition between sensuality and the grotesque. Namely surgery and pain is something we naturally recoil from and yet can be opted for because it arguably makes us more beautiful. The x-ray images play on that juxtaposition as they are both fascinating because of their beauty like jellyfish in an aquarium, and they repel us as we think about the pain and changes involved in such a procedure.