Title: Smooch (2024)

Medium: Oil and Lipstick on Panel

Size: 15 x 15cm

This small painting is part of a series of paintings in which I incorporate lipstick kisses into a composition. The series explores the capitalisation of beauty and sex, influenced by Kate Mosses ‘Lipstick kiss’ that was auctioned for £60,000 to Philip Green in 2006. I chose to merge the kiss motif with a piranha; after reading an article about a Baluga Whale whose lips were covered in lipstick to amuse visitors of an aquarium. Playfully connecting this two moments to explore the capitalist and exploitative paradigm in which feminine beauty and bodies are controlled.