La Cage et le canon de la totalité 2022

Sandra Chevrier made this striking painting which layers realism and pop art to intriguing effect. The eyes are so realistic, but they're peering out from behind a fragmented mask of comic book imagery. I wonder if she started with the eyes, painstakingly rendering them, then built up this riotous collage around them. Maybe the woman *is* Spiderman. And maybe that kind of sums up how it feels to be a woman, or any person, today, right? A tug of war between vulnerability and strength. I think of other painters like Lisa Yuskavage, who also mix realism and abstraction to create these emotionally charged images of women. Artists are constantly riffing off each other, creating this amazing visual conversation across time. This painting is not a fixed statement; it’s an open question.