The Artist (original)

PanPastel on paper. (Price includes framing of your choice).‘The Artist’ explores the concept of the artist self- how we see ourselves vs how the outside world sees us. The ongoing struggle to paint what is honest to us vs what is expected and demanded of us.  This work is a self portrait within a self portrait- the person on the canvas, unrefined, raw, pained, rough, and incomplete. She pulls at her flesh as if to escape her physicality.The second artist- the one painting, fully realized, refined, at ease, an illusion. She doesn’t exist. she is as flat and devoid of dimension as the paper she’s rendered on.Both subjects faces are obscured. Who is she really? She can be anyone. She’s me. And she’s you. A painting of masks without faces. Facades. Projections we cast out into the world.  A world where peace and anguish are not mutually exclusive, but sold to us like they are. What we choose to project says something real, therefore is it really a lie? Both figures are true and exist, and do not exist at the same time. What is an artist but someone who exists and doesn’t in the same breath.