It seems like we are finally taking a stand.  For years now, we’ve been bombarded by photoshopped images of “perfection”, leading to unrealistic expectations on both sides of the gender aisle.  While the underlying issues are still pervasive, the tide seems to be turning.  Companies are at last standing up and reinforcing the idea that beauty comes in all shapes and sizes.  In her series, Have a Nice Day, Berlin based artist Jennis Li Cheng Tien gives the world her own take on how digitally enhanced images have altered our perceptions.

 

How disorienting and disconcerting it must be to have your digital representation, whether it be your face or body, so altered that it doesn’t reflect the image you see in the mirror.  What may begin as a tweak here, an airbrush there, perhaps with the good intention of clearing up one’s less than perfect skin or helping that designer’s clothes to hang a bit more ideally, can quickly escalate into dangerous territory.  We’re left in a world where the face on the screen or the page doesn’t match the face we see in person.  Where certain idealized qualities that often don’t naturally exist leave the rest of us striving for the unattainable.  What we end up doing is erasing not the blemishes, but ourselves.

To see more of the work of Jennis Li Cheng Tien, please visit her website and her Saatchi Art portfolio.

All images are via the Saatchi Art website.