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| Bird Girl - Lauren Reis |
As I wandered through the Sefton Open with my wife earlier this year, we enjoyed debating which artwork she’d vote for while I shared my favourites. Inevitably, we speculated about the winner—would it be a seascape, like last year’s triumph, or a fauna portrait, like 2023’s? It’s a fun thought experiment to gauge how connected we are to the zeitgeist. I expected something youth-themed might catch the collective eye, but I confess I didn’t predict Bird Girl by Lauren Reis would take the crown. Though beautifully crafted, I found it a tad too eerie to win our collective votes.
Boy, was I wrong! Bird Girl showcases a mastery of techniques. One could count the individual hairs on the girl’s head, or each pistil of the dandelion’s clock that floats amongst them, all while admiring the smooth contrast between her cold, soft skin and the warm, textured fur coat that wraps her in a regal, otherworldly dignity. Yet, these eminent examples of craftsmanship aren’t what seize the viewer’s attention: it’s the vacant eyes of a girl too perfectly centred in a frame that doesn’t merely display her—it entraps her.
The painting’s median point isn’t an eye, a nonexistent smile, or an ear; it’s somewhere along her jawline, the perfect centre of her head. This forces the viewer’s gaze to her visible eye, inches from the frame’s edge, trapping him, the viewer, with the subject’s gaze in this unsettling composition.
And beyond the vacant eyes and the lifeless emotion conveyed in the stillness of her forehead, cheek, and lips, there’s a flower that couldn’t have been placed with ease and a warm-looking vest that seems out of place next to her cold, exposed arm: all of these traits give an unsettling feeling that furthers the effect of an eyeball so vacant than the background is seen in its place.
This girl’s profile would make the saddest coin in anyone’s pocket.
Like any great artwork, it invites questions rather than provides answers: this painting is unsettling, hinting at more than it reveals. This dialogue is engaging, which is why it was rightfully chosen by most attendees as the stand-out piece in a showcase brimming with diverse techniques and subjects. Congratulations to the artist, Ms. Lauren Reis, on this unique masterpiece.
Photo via The Atkinson’s Facebook page