I originally created this acrylic on canvas painting “Girl B4 the Mirror” in 2022 as a tribute to Pablo Picasso’s famous oil on canvas painting “Girl before a Mirror” which he created in 1932. Picasso’s painting is a portrait of his mistress and muse, Marie-Thérèse Walter, who is depicted standing in front of a mirror looking at her reflection.
I was fascinated by Picasso’s depiction of distorted reality between his muse and her image in the mirror. It was a brilliant visual metaphor of the difference in the way we see ourselves versus the way we actually appear. It is symbolic of the distortion of subjective perception within our own brains compared to objective reality.
When I painted my version of “Girl B4 the Mirror” I originally intended it as a tongue in cheek commentary on diet culture, as a twist on Picasso’s “Girl before a Mirror”. Emphasizing that our distorted values about appearance are exaggerated by the broad influence of social media on the minds of individuals and on our collective consciousness.
Our culture often insinuates that we can “never be enough” … thin enough, rich enough, smart enough, popular enough, good enough, etc.
Curtis Dickman MD
- Subject Matter: Surrealscape
- Collections: EMOTIONAL ART, HUMOR: POLITICAL SATIRE & SARCASM, PAINTINGS, SURREALISM