theater of masks

Pillow Talk, 2016, acrylic, Mylar, 48x31

People in this painting can actually embrace it; why do I always doubt?

Doubt is a bitch. 

The purpose for this painting was a gift. Would they like it if I actually wrap it and bring it to their worm and welcoming house? Is there too much implied here: the facial expressions, the scale of the figures? It all must mean something... Would they like the meaning? 

It is interesting to think about our self-image in relationship to the surrounding world. The strangers in the street, for instance, are no more detailed to us than the cutout silhouettes, but we notice peculiarities when we get to interact with them. Let's say we start relationships. To let new people into our own world, we manage to weave their sometimes troubling features into some kind of coherent mythology to match it, but by the time they become a part of our life, their appearance stops being significant again. It turns into a sort of a mask, a sign symbol for their complex personalities, a color code for their emotion in relation to ours. 

But when it comes to our own precious selves we are very selective about our appearance. We carefully examine our pictures; we don't like all of them, only some. They are usually those that don't represent us in the way we are being experienced by the others, but are more of an ideal image. And interestingly enough, that that ideal image, again, is somewhat static, more of a mask than the real alive us. 

 Greeks were right: life is a theater of masks.