«Glitch in the matrix»

In 2019 Instagram started hiding like counts for some users, first in Canada, then in Australia, Brazil, Italy, Japan and a few other countries. The idea was that people would care less about the number under a photo. In 2021 hiding likes became a setting anyone could switch on or off. The counter stayed. That counter, and what it does to a body on a screen, is where this piece of glitch art begins.

A woman stands with her back to us, naked, one hand resting on her shoulder, braids pulled up into a high bun. Above her head floats a red notification bubble: 13K comments, 767 likes, 108 new followers. The body is painted with care, in warm browns and creams, and the skin even carries a faint dotted pattern, like an enlarged print.

The face is where it fails. Her profile is split into horizontal bands that don't line up, the jaw slipping out from under the cheek, with small black bars where an eye and a mouth should be. To the left, pixel-like squares of cyan, red, pink and blue drift away as if the image were coming apart.

The nude seen from behind is an old subject. Velazquez painted the Rokeby Venus from the back, her face only a blur in a mirror, and in 1914 the suffragette Mary Richardson slashed the canvas at the National Gallery in London, partly over how men looked at it. Nam June Paik was bending TV images with magnets in the 1960s. I wanted those two lines to meet in contemporary pop art: a body that is looked at, and a picture that breaks while it's being looked at. The numbers are the only sharp thing about her.

This is the original pop art painting, 120 x 90 cm, one canvas. It has a twin, Glitch in the matrix (2), and the pair makes strong statement wall art hung side by side. The glitch art image also exists as a hand-finished lithograph. Most of my original paintings are already in private collections, but I paint originals to order in any size. To ask about this one, message me on Instagram or by email.