Fifteen minutes wishing I was somewhere else
130 x 80 cm, oil on canvas, 2019
We live in the age of envy taken to an extreme by our use of social media. We are constantly fed the “photoshopped lives” of others while living the very real, unfiltered version of our own. We can’t measure up to the lives we tell others we are living. We feel inauthentic, strangely envious of our own avatars.
Inspired by Instagram posts, “Fifteen minutes wishing I was somewhere else” depicts a state of being envious of someone who has something we do not have. It is a mental projection of one’s desires fuelled by social media algorithms.
The painting features a young man sitting in an armchair, deep in thought with his head resting in his hand. His facial features partially obscured from view by a smear of paint. His body—a hybrid of geometric and organic forms morphing into a pink trapezoid. In the left upper corner, another man’s silhouette is frozen in motion above or under turquoise water. His face entirely blurred, fingers touching the water’s surface.
The composition is dominated by primary shapes and space, retaining allusions to the landscape and distinguishing aligned and realigned geometric scaffolding filled with vivid colours. The forms and the colours interact, evoking a sense of depth and atmosphere. There is a tension between rationality and emotion linked to immediacy and self-expression.
Living in an “aesthetic hallucination of the real”, we neglect our own happiness in the endless pursuit of self-esteem and validation. As social media has amplified the sense of competitive and comparing attitude in people deep at the psychological level, the work raises the question of how the curation of our online personas can contribute to this age of envy in which we live.
We live in the age of envy taken to an extreme by our use of social media. We are constantly fed the “photoshopped lives” of others while living the very real, unfiltered version of our own. We can’t measure up to the lives we tell others we are living. We feel inauthentic, strangely envious of our own avatars.
Inspired by Instagram posts, “Fifteen minutes wishing I was somewhere else” depicts a state of being envious of someone who has something we do not have. It is a mental projection of one’s desires fuelled by social media algorithms.
The painting features a young man sitting in an armchair, deep in thought with his head resting in his hand. His facial features partially obscured from view by a smear of paint. His body—a hybrid of geometric and organic forms morphing into a pink trapezoid. In the left upper corner, another man’s silhouette is frozen in motion above or under turquoise water. His face entirely blurred, fingers touching the water’s surface.
The composition is dominated by primary shapes and space, retaining allusions to the landscape and distinguishing aligned and realigned geometric scaffolding filled with vivid colours. The forms and the colours interact, evoking a sense of depth and atmosphere. There is a tension between rationality and emotion linked to immediacy and self-expression.
Living in an “aesthetic hallucination of the real”, we neglect our own happiness in the endless pursuit of self-esteem and validation. As social media has amplified the sense of competitive and comparing attitude in people deep at the psychological level, the work raises the question of how the curation of our online personas can contribute to this age of envy in which we live.
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