Soul Searching 

Sarah Joncas’s painting Soul Searching is a surreal portrait of a young woman against a floral background. The halo and reverent gaze of the figure recall the visual codes of religious painting. But the heart-shaped gap in her t-shirt, through which leaves protrude, signals a break with conservative tradition. Joncas was born in 1986 in Canada, and her art has been exhibited in commercial galleries. Her work is part of a trend toward pop-surrealist figuration. The aesthetics of the internet, as well as the manga and animation that have circulated globally, can be felt here. The painting reflects contemporary culture’s fascination with the expressive inner life of youth. It blends a romanticized view of youth with the iconography of spirituality. Studying art history involves researching the many ways in which artists have both drawn on tradition, and broken with it.