The Doll (Maquette for The Doll's Games) 1938

Hans Bellmer made this strange photograph, "The Doll", imagining what it might be like to create bodies that defy expectations, somewhere in the 1930s. I imagine Bellmer, with his surrealist and sometimes disturbing vision, piecing together this doll. The textures are eerie, almost unsettling, and how the limbs are so deliberately arranged is very telling. There’s something about the surface, the almost porcelain-like quality, that gets under your skin. I see echoes of other artists who wrestled with the figure, like Picasso with his distorted forms or Louise Bourgeois with her uncanny sculptures. Bellmer isn’t just showing us a doll; he’s inviting us to question our own perceptions and desires. Artists are always in conversation, borrowing and building upon each other’s ideas. And just as there are infinite ways to make a painting, there are infinite ways to interpret one, each as valid and personal as the last.