Lily Ghodsi
Constant Ringing, 2020
Acrylic paint
20 x 20 inches; Two panels: 12 x 12 inches; Two panels: 11 x 14 inches
I often forget to ask myself why I primarily paint portraits. I have a deep fascination with portraiture, and it is what I am drawn to within the art world. This past year, I started to recognize my internal, and completely unconscious, attraction to what our society considers to be the standards of beauty. I have begun to interrogate my desire to reproduce it in my art.
As far back as I can remember, I have wanted to resemble the old Hollywood stars and the women on the covers of Vogue magazine. Even before social media, these ideas of what constitutes the ideal form of beauty were already placed firmly in my mind. With this series of paintings I want to explore why I have personally fallen prey to such paragons.
Growing up with the access to makeup, hair straighteners, and popular clothing brands allowed for a detrimental amount of change to my own appearance. The tools to create ‘beauty’ were accessible and ubiquitous, and I did everything in my power to use them to alter myself and conform to the ideal images I saw. My personal relationship to the contemporary standards of beauty directly related to my obsession with depicting these models and actresses in my paintings. I was able to change my way of thinking and my relationship with beauty standards, and for this reason, I used this project to reflect on my thought process. Lately, I have reexamined my thinking and my relationship with beauty standards, for this reason, I have used this project to reflect on that process. Although I do not aim to change my appearance (as I did when I was younger) anymore, the constant buzzing that the ideals of beauty create is still ringing in my ear.
