Artwork title : Heart Shaped Glasses

Dear commission, 

the painting Heart Shaped Glasses I'm partecipating with is the first, in a series of 4 total paintings that narrar a stoty of our modern society. 
I'm not sure if I have enough field to describe the entire concept here, but in any case, you can find it on following link: https://youtu.be/VnRttuZDEK0
 

 

Heart Shaped Glasses

 

Heart Shaped Glasses develop in a sequence. A sequence that says a story. The story of a society that falls in love with objects, over-spends, over-produces, and over-consumes. A society, that is unable to see that, because of its pink lenses. 

 

Technically

The story develops in 4 canvases. 

Canvas number one and number four are 80x100cm. They’re bigger than the other two because #1 and #4 sign the beginning and the end. Even more, #4 is the new beginning.

Canvases 2 and 3, are 80x80cm, they’re the narrative and the storytellers. Because the story develops and transitions in these 2 pieces. The canvases come from the Liquitex brand. And in this case, I chose them specifically because they’re recycled. Each of them is made of 30 plastic bottles and they’re 3D. Which means their frame is thicker. I was looking for more sustainable tools.

 

Why this exact Heart Shaped Glasses?

It’s a really personal story. 

It has been a while since I had my eyes on this particular pair of sunglasses. 

They were from a French brand, called Chloe, and were…

 I don’t even know how to explain it… 

They were an agglomerate of fashion, beauty, vision, perfect workmanship product development, and something more. Something more I couldn’t get what it was. 

I saw many heart-shaped glasses through the years and I wanted a pair, but none of them resonated with me. I don’t know, they just didn’t look right. And then Chloe launched their version. And it was perfect. Pink, visionary. Perfect. 

I still remember the price, it was 425€. It felt like a lot for someone like me who doesn’t buy luxury goods. So I didn’t rush into getting them, but I was contemplating. 

I was hoping to get them with a discount. But they never got discounted.

Back then I was working as a garment designer.

I traveled to Bangladesh for business, I went there with my team to visit production. 

Long story short: my body collapsed, I needed emergency life-saving surgery and spent the next 2 weeks in Bangladesh in the United Hospital of Dhaka.

When I was back and at home, I searched again for these perfect heart-shaped sunglasses.

I wanted them. 

No, I deserved them! So, to congratulate myself for having survived and to celebrate the fact I’m living my second life now, I bought them. Full price. Because I deserved them. 425€ for an item was the second most expensive thing I’ve ever got. 

 

Colorite: 

The colors are bright and warm and the mix of bright pink and warm white background makes you feel the flavour of sugar in your mouth. The entire painting is like a giant re-shaped lolly-pop and almost suffocates you with its sweetness. The background is not really white. It has been carefully studied to complement the pink but to create also separation. It might not look like it, but there is blue and black in it. However, the background feels like heating up the entire visual, creating in this way a concept that goes close to the idea of “singularity”.

 

#1 Heart Shaped Glasses

In painting number 1 you will see the sunglasses in 3/4th position, temples open, almost as if someone’s wearing them. Details are readable, but not detailed. Joints and components such as hinges and screws are present, but not particularly accentuated. The bright pink is absorbing you. You can almost hear the silence. There is no face behind the glasses, but you can actually imagine being from the inside, wearing them. Watching through them. And then, a shadow is dropping into a singularity that has no surface, has no body, but has consistency. But it’s not a shadow, it’s a shade. We don’t know much about the background and the environment. And the little we know is that it’s three-dimensional. And we can be sure about that, because the farthest the shade, the less on focus it is. You see how the immediate reflection of the temples is sharper and gradually turns blurred in the distant extensions. 

There is something surrealistic in the outlook as a whole of this specific painting, it’s much different than the others.

Painting #1 is the representation of the beginning of the end of an era.

 

#2 Heart Shaped Glasses

“Seeing the world through rose-tinted glasses” refers to people who have a tendency to see everything in a positive light. Exaggeratedly, potentially unrealistic light. 

In painting number #2 we see the sunglasses reversed from the perspective we’re in the inside, able to see through the lenses. But instead of watching out, we watch on the inside. And what we see is the reflection of this beautiful, electrifying pink so bright, that looks exactly as important, or maybe even more important than the real object. This shade, this reflection is not anymore blurred. It’s sharp, brighter, stronger, more intense, and goes even further - it has the sun’s highlights. Now, the presence of the sun is really symbolic. Sun is energy, power, positivity… But mostly, the main responsible for life on Earth. So now not only the shade is equally important as the object itself, but started to develop life on its own. The highlights of the reflection are telling us that new life is born. And it’s the vision of ourselves. The vision of ourselves is overly exaggerated. 

Painting becomes bigger on the canvas and absorbs you. The background is visually almost eliminated. 

 

#3 Heart Shaped Glasses

Colored sunglasses lenses don’t exist only to make a fashion statement, they actually help filter light away from your eyes. 

Pink lenses help to reduce eye strain and enhance visual clarity.

Painting number #3 evolves quickly. It becomes smaller on the canvas, especially compared to number #2. The shade becomes darker, more dramatic, there is more contrast and because of all of that, the composition is more accentuated, environment starts playing the role again. The sunglasses as an object are not as important, they’re left upside down, in the way you would leave them when you take them off for a minute and leave them on the table. But instead of folding them, you leave them open. In this way, you welcome the change that has started in number #2. The reflection is the new YOU. It’s about you. Not about how you see the world, but about how the world sees YOU. Through filter strain improvement and more positive way.

 

#4 Heart Shaped Glasses

The size of the object comes back to normality. But the object itself is viewed from the top. We’re again the observer. But we’re as well the main character because we are able to identify with the shade. We’re like in the status of meditation - being able to separate from the ego and see ourselves from the outside. As sunglasses are viewed from the top, we have very little information about them. In fact, the only information that arrives regarding their color and shape is through their shade. But there is a new phenomenon - the shade of the shade. This pink filter we consensually applied to ourselves is our core now; to a point, where it is an object by itself, it’s not a reflection anymore, but a solid matter. And this solid matter has its own reflection now. To underline the detachment from reality, composition-wise, the painting is not even perfectly centered but has moved. 

 

To Recap

None of the paintings picture the sunglasses in frontal from the perspective of how they are usually displayed in a shop, with the outside facing our eyes. 

And the reason why unfolds in the series of four, step by step:

To paint the sunglasses in a frontal position means their temples must be folded and therefore, visible. And therefore they give you the impression of sunglasses that are not worn. They’re untouched, they’re in their resting position, inactive. 

In number #1 we see the sunglasses in 3/4th, they look like almost someone is wearing them and we feel like looking at who’s behind them, at their owner; We’re the observers, staying the outside, in real life. That’s not necessarily pink. 

In number #2, the visual is from the inside of the lens, but instead of watching toward the outside and seeing the world through a pink filter, we watch in the direction: of the inner side. And this inner side has prismed the outer world. In other words, the outer world, the reality is a pink color heart-shaped reflection now. And we wear it. We own it.

In number #3 everything changes. The glasses are reversed. The reality is upside down. Now it’s the reflection, being the main character. It’s more alive than ever. The outer world and reality are lost in the singularity of the background. Reflection is on its feet and is your new reality. You identify through it. The actual object is absorbed by the background and by the shade.

In number #4 the object (sunglasses) has evolved to nullity. This object is just an archaic tool now. The reflection of who we think we are and what we believe the world to be has consolidated, creating separation from reality. But what was just a reflection in number #1 to #3, got materialised in number #4. And we’re sure in this evolution because the shade has a shade now. And this shade starts building slowly its own life. And we start to realize that we live in a world in which we let objects define us. We live in their shade. 

 

Meaning

Now, let me tell you something about the heart-shaped pink sunglasses.

They give an optimistic, cheerful way of looking at life.

Historically, heart-shaped glasses are part of the flower-power hippie style, worn by many celebrities, the Beatles included. Fashion on the side, pink and reddish sunglasses are great to wear while driving, providing heightened road visibility due to their ability to boost contrast. Great for increasing depth of field and vision.

Together with the historical, symbolic, and visual information, we start getting that the painting of

the sunglasses is:

once a representation of the object itself - sunglasses. Something that protects us from the sunlight and helps us see more clearly because of the pinkish tones. So we can conclude, that it’s something decorative.

But they’re also representations of the way we see the world. In the 4 paintings sequence, the timeline starts with how we see the world and evolves to how the world sees us. Because today, more than ever the world watches us, consensually. At any point of the day and moment, we consent to anyone to see us. We share our pictures and stories on Instagram, we express our opinions on Twitter and Facebook pages. We allow Google Maps to follow our movements. We are a reflection of this contemporary modern world. We’re a heart-shaped, pink-filtered version of it. Heart-shaped, because everything looks great on Instagram posts. Pink, to boost the contrast between you, who’s still not doing it, and the others, who have already converted to this ultra-modern present-day. This is the spirit of the time we live in. It’s shiny, it’s attractive, it’s seducing. It looks perfect in the picture and makes you want it. It might look decorative, as the first impression of the Heart Shaped Glasses painting. But the embellishment is just to hide the shade of what the original intention is - the world to see us. Filtered. Perfect. 

 

We buy, driven by our emotions.

I bought these sunglasses driven by my emotions of worthiness. 

How many times you’ve said, “I will buy this, because I deserve it”? Or “I worked hard and so I deserve to have what I want”. “I deserve” is a phrase that makes you feel worthy.

But why do we need objects to make us feel worthy? 

Because this contemporary society influences a life built on personal insecurity and validation through possessions, associated with success and social acceptance. 

We don’t buy heart-shaped pink glasses to see the world better when driving.

We buy them, so the world can see we can drive.