Madeline Bohrer

Reflections, 2020
Series: Generation WHY

Acrylic and mirrors on canvas
40.6 x 50.8 cm

About the work

In Reflections, an homage to Diego Velazquez's Rokeby Venus, Bohrer reimagines Venus as a millennial woman living in a self-staged society. The painting features real mirror inlays, allowing the viewer to recreate their own vain self-reflection as they gaze at the painting. Although nudes were rare in seventeenth-century Spanish art, in today's Kardashian culture, anyone can create their own nude image. By depicting Venus from the back, a common visual and literary erotic motif, the artist challenges Instagram's censorship machine that surpasses images deemed "too sexy", exemplifying the hyper-sexualization of female bodies and unjust treatment of women. Almost 400 years after Velasquez completed his controversial painting, female sexuality is still considered illicit.

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