My art practice explores the intersection of digital culture, identity, and self-representation, focusing on how women are depicted and consumed in the age of social media. Through a combination of collage, painting, and drawing, my work examines the ways in which images of women—specifically appropriated from social media—reflect broader societal trends surrounding identity construction, beauty, and the performance of self. These pieces integrate translucent papers, oil pencils, and layers of mixed media to highlight the interplay between the physical and the virtual, creating a visual dialogue that questions the boundaries between reality and constructed online personas.

The figures in my work are drawn from the abundant visual material made publicly available on social media platforms. I appropriate and manipulate these images to capture the curated choreography of poses that have become ubiquitous online. The use of these familiar poses, often celebrated for their polish and perfection, allows me to comment on the complexities of how women present themselves and how these images are consumed by others. While the subjects maintain a degree of control over how they are portrayed, the context and meaning of these images are shaped by their audience, often leading to a fragmentation of identity.

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Through collage, I reassemble features—eyes, hands, or facial elements—at a larger scale, emphasizing their role in contemporary beauty ideals. The work mirrors society’s fixation on close-up selfies and constructed full-body poses, offering a critical perspective on the manufactured nature of these depictions. By layering translucent papers and pigments, I create a sense of depth and fragility that evokes the tension between the polished surface of online representation and the more complicated realities of life offline. Color plays a crucial role in my process, becoming trapped within the layered papers and mixed-media surfaces, mimicking the way identity is obscured or amplified in digital spaces.

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My body of research is rooted in the belief that, despite the saturation of images in the digital age, photographic and visual imagery retains the power to provoke strong emotional responses. Social media, particularly the rise of the camera phone, has amplified this, giving everyday users the ability to construct and share curated versions of themselves in an unprecedented way. Self-portraiture, which has long been a central theme in art, has been transformed by this immediacy, allowing for constant reinvention and interaction. My work reflects on this phenomenon, drawing attention to the duality between the selves portrayed online and the selves lived offline.

While my focus is primarily on women, the themes in my practice extend to broader societal behaviours surrounding the generation and consumption of images. Enlarged and fragmented features within my compositions emphasise how these trends are amplified by digital tools, reflecting not only individual expressions but also collective ideals and anxieties. The boundaries between subject and object, gender, and reality blur in my work, mirroring the ambiguity of identity in today’s interconnected world.

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Ultimately, my practice is a commentary on how the virtual and the real intersect in today’s visual culture. By repurposing and recontextualizing the imagery of social media, I aim to question the ways in which identity is constructed, consumed, and reconstructed in an era dominated by the digital screen.