Facelift

Born in Ohio but for many years resident in Italy, the American artist Paul Beel practices a solid and refined study aimed at the portrait, so as to summarize nineteenth-century influences and twentieth century Expressionist ideas. In fact, his figures go from a radiance soaked in color to an almost maniacal manifestation of bodily, physical details, so much so that in some of his works the great magisterium of Lucian Freud is remembered. In the picture presented here, the female character is rendered with great intensity, in the typical sitting position characteristic of British artists. If, on the one hand, the rendering of the details, the face and the dress is meticulous, on the other hand an incessant restlessness subtly enlivens the figure, thus expressing a strained yet unrelenting anxiety. Thus, the restyling to which the title alludes is translated into the desire to change over time an image that remains static, yet transforms itself, starting from the close eyebrows that divide the face into two parts.