Ewa Juszkiewicz - Recent Paintings

Ewa Juszkiewicz paints surreal oil-on-canvas portraits of women that turn genre conventions inside out. Beginning by producing a likeness of a historical European painting her sources date from the Renaissance through the nineteenth century Juszkiewicz expertly imitates the original s technique and style but replaces the subject s face with a decorative construction of her own. In some compositions, she swathes her sitter s head in folds of fabric or lush floral arrangements; in others, she redirects an elaborately plaited hairstyle to shield the subject s face from view. The results of this process narrate a history of erasure that runs throughout the Western canon of female portraiture.