Acrylic Paint and Gloss Medium on Canvas
2' x 1.5'
2017

In this piece, I tried to contrast the vast differences in subject matter to make an arresting image. In it, I painted the body of a little girl wearing a white dress, reminiscent of a wedding dress, with the head of a goat. Typical connotations of little girls are innocence and joy, whereas a goat is commonly associated with the occult and mystery. I tried play with the viewer's preconceived notions of both images by meshing these symbolic subjects in a single image so that neither has dominance. Thus, the viewer has to make up their own mind on whether perhaps this goat is not evil or perhaps this little girls is not so angelic. Though one cannot tell solely from the picture, I used gloss medium to actually make the eyes of the goat raised, so that they stand out slightly from the painting. This minutely transforms it from an innocuous painting simply hanging on the wall to something in the viewer's space commanding attention and resolution.