Anonymous Portraits by Ewa Juszkiewicz…

11:27 p.m.

In a shady valley, near a running water (after François Gérard), by Ewa Juszkiewicz (2023)

Technique: oil on canvas / Measures: 270 x 160 cm

For more than a decade, Ewa Juszkiewicz (Poland, 1984) has been creating paintings based on women portrayed by European artists, especially artists of the 18th and 19th centuries, such as Jean Baptiste François Désoria and Élisabeth-Louise Vigée Le Brun. That is, Juszkiewicz appropriates these works by distorting and deforming subjects, especially by covering their faces with plants and fruits. This “anti-face” of the characters contrasts with the attire they wear. We recognize the clothing and associate it with the 19th century, but the violence in the definition of the face is contemporary. The artist maintains that this absence (or perhaps this concealment) of the face blocks the possibility of informal reproduction where the new face is different from the original.

The Summer (after Jean Baptiste François Désoria), by Ewa Juszkiewicz (2023)

Technique: oil on canvas / Measures: 160 x 120 cm

When we are faced with these paintings our brain seeks to find a nose or a pair of eyes or any sign that resembles a face and for a second we think we have found something of that, although in an instant we feel frustrated because said face does not exist.

Untitled (after François Gérard), by Ewa Juszkiewicz (2023)

Technique: oil on canvas / Measures: 100 x 80cm

As to the technique and material, Juszkiewicz maintains the traditional forms of creation: several layers of oil paint and overlapping brush strokes just as in 19th century paintings, demonstrating unparalleled virtuosity. But this virtuosity would make no sense if it were not in service of such transgressive project. Because covering the face of these historical portraits challenges the essence of the genre: it destroys the portrait as such. Ultimately, her paintings are not portraits of a particular woman but rather representations of the female condition under the patriarchal gaze. Therefore now the paintings are still lives where the fruits, plants, fabrics and other objects that the artist uses as masks of a figure, are to reverse the traditional hierarchy of feminine-masculine genders of the past (the woman was portrayed to be observed and the man as a hero or intellectual).