Deconstruction
Go.Back

Scrutinized Duality

I would say that from the moment we are born until the moment we die that we are being watched, judged, evaluated and scrutinized, except that it now starts before we are born, with ultrasound imagery, and after we die, with doctors and morticians, and especially if a person has an open casket viewing.

This painting is about the duality we need to survive in society. Most people act a little differently at work, at home, at a funeral in a church, or at happy hour, you may call it having a situational personality. So this work's theme is about being watched and the different "masks" or "faces" needed to navigate through society and life.

There are many eyes staring out from several species in the painting. In the bottom right foreground, two black crested macaque monkies wear suits, for work, symbolizing how we need to put on work faces. Two long sliced slivers of skin behind them shows part of a woman's face, her eye staring out at the viewer. An asilidae (robber) fly with large eyes watches from the left middle ground, watching the inside of the woman's face with another asilidae fly and one black cat's eye looking out.

The left Siamese skeleton holds the distorted face of the woman in the pond who's face was removed. The other Siamese twin holds a magnifying glass for closer inspection and scrutiny. This skeleton is the opposite counterbalance of the "two faced" theme, being as this pair share only one face and two bodies.