Original artwork description:

large scale framed oil ready to hang.

She appears to be taking a self portrait but she's actually looking for more bars. She's looking for a connection as we so often are. Since the advent of the mobile phone we have become increasingly attached to them and "connectivity" they represent; looking for messages from friends and family, checking the news and weather and stock and art markets to see how we are doing. We draw and read books on our phones. listen to voicemails, music and guided meditations. We shoot oodles of photos often at the expense of the actual experience we are having.
All that said, this painting is only about these phenomena in part. My approach to narrative is to show signs of meaning which are willing to be apprehended and deciphered yet are intentionally misleading and evasive in favor of preventing a single conclusion. Like fragments of a dream leading the waking mind down a garden path of clues which vanish as quickly as they appear. The girl turns away from us veiling her identity behind a curtain of hair to look at her phone and remain involved in her interior life instead of engaging with the exterior world. Outside of her purview a mother and daughter look at a monumentally scaled painting. Their 'realness' is dwarfed by the giant illusion of her interiority. We see them from behind and their identities are also veiled by their backs being turned to us. We witness them considering the female gaze. They connect by holding hands and are halated objectively as the girl is metaphorically. What are they all thinking?

Materials used:

oil on canvas

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