My face, your face, anyone’s face, is just the residue from endless meetings where anonymous artists argued their fees with the proud and the pious. For all the regicides, restorations, reformations, and rejection of any master but the Market, the iconography stays the same, and we can wear our totes sad emotions with the clarity of an Umbrian fresco: a downturned mouth and a single tear for the poor, poor children, whoever they are; a simple smile for the woman with the fruit and flowers from beyond the lifeless ruins. I click on a sunflower icon, but my face is a near-blank circle with eyes that give nothing away. At this stage, the commission is non-negotiable, but behind me I hear the gabble of priests and princes in echoing chambers, the kiss of coin on coin. After all these centuries, one brushstroke is all it takes to change the narrative. Press your face to the wall.
Oz Hardwick
Picture Nick Victor