Fenella Maclean

PAINTING 

Email: fenella.maclean@gmail.com

My practice asks questions of societal beauty standards, both women’s experiences of them and my own relationship to them. Women self-objectify and analyse themselves as a result of these societal ‘standards’, often succumbing or conforming to such societal expectations and pressures. In my work I exploit this relationship, foregrounding the interaction between paintings and mirrors, to observe how women are always looking at their reflection, observing images of themselves in a constant process of self-analysis. In my practice, I make paintings from my reflection, then I observe the painted image reflected back in the mirror. In turn, I make paintings form the reflected painting. In the process the sense of self becomes fragmented in these compositions as I attempt to simultaneously see myself and to catch sight of how others might see me.