Screen siren and legendary glamor girl Lauren Bacall once said, “I think your whole life shows on your face and you should be proud of that”.  Our culture is one that emphasizes youth and associates it with beauty.  We’re told over and over again that to be young is to be at your best and your most desirable, so we buck against the aging process in any way we can. Swedish born artist Anna Halldin Maule paints hyperrealistic portraits of our obsession with the pursuit of beauty.

 

We pluck, wax, and whiten ad naseum to reach that idealized, fleeting “perfection”.  We do our best to erase the gray hairs, wrinkles, and sags that tell the story of our life on the canvas of our bodies, choosing instead to homogenize ourselves until every body, every face no longer bears the distinction they were born with.  By contrast, Halldin Maule juxtaposes her models with icons of nature’s beauty, flowers and butterflies, who never give a thought to what makes them so lovely.  They simply are.

To see more of Anna Halldin Maule‘s incredible oil paintings, please visit her website.  Her solo show, Persona can be seen at Scott Richards Contemporary Art in San Francisco through August 30th.

All images are via the artist’s website.  Artist found via My Modern Met.