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Ewa Juszkiewicz Creates Twisted Versions of Canonical Portraits

Polish painter Ewa Juszkiewicz subverts canonical portraiture by playing with viewers' expectations. Poised damsels that evoke Renaissance-era nobility stand with their hands clasped and their faces replaced by oyster mushrooms, cockroaches and shrubbery. It's as if in spite of all the pains these ladies have taken to appear proper and civilized, nature has reasserted its dominion. Juzkiewicz is specifically interested in portraits of women and uses her work to study the ways women have been presented over the course of European history.

Polish painter Ewa Juszkiewicz subverts canonical portraiture by playing with viewers’ expectations. Poised damsels that evoke Renaissance-era nobility stand with their hands clasped and their faces replaced by oyster mushrooms, cockroaches and shrubbery. It’s as if in spite of all the pains these ladies have taken to appear proper and civilized, nature has reasserted its dominion. Juszkiewicz is specifically interested in portraits of women and uses her work to study the ways women have been presented over the course of European history.

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