Artwork description:

I was inspired by a woman smoking, and the sensual attitude that only a woman knows or can assume. The 'cigarette portrait' of photographic memory from the past, drives me to seek out unusual poses of female smokers, as I will show later.
The portrait itself, it fascinates me, the enigmatic and mysterious image, one's own identity, which in many is equivocal, counterfeit. In fact, the faces portrayed show thoughtful expressions some, absent others, fascinating, caught up in the common need to 'be such' and not to 'have to appear'. The search for one's own identity, which leads to true self-knowledge, and the awareness that everything in life is semblance.
<< ... Every portrait made with passion is the portrait of the artist, not of the model. The model is but the pretext, the occasion. It is not she who is revealed, but rather the artist who reveals himself, his dreams, his desires, his conception of beauty, who reveals, in short, the secret of his soul. He reveals more about himself, he who makes a portrait than he who is portrayed. And I conclude with what Milan Kundera said: << ... each of us is his image: he uses his image, he hides behind his image ... But nothing is more mysterious than one's own image. Never shall we see ourselves through the eyes of others.>>

Materials used:

giclèe print on canvas

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