Life is Not a Fairytale (Graffiti) Painting

Medium: Multimedia (acrylic, oil, pastels) on canvas Size: 850x1200mm Year: 2020 Whilst studying and researching Portrait of Heroes, I stumbled on a number of portraits that immediately caught my eye. They didn’t express the grandeur and heroism that so many other portraits conveyed. Conversely they seemed to express a sense of melancholy somberness. Was this a rare instance where the subject did not have the wealth and means to commission the artist to paint their ‘better self’? Instead the artist was able to capture a true glimpse into their subjects lives, showing just how beautifully ordinary and melancholy they may have been. I related this thought back to when he took his kids to Disneyland only to have the magic disappear by having to stand in line for hours just like everyone else. This made me wonder if the flip side of social media is that we are now able to puncture the facades that the rich create far quicker than before. How will history judge them now they can’t control the images that are made?