The title of this body of work comes from As Others See You: The Story of Plastic Surgery, a book that my great grandfather Henry Schireson wrote in 1938. Schireson practiced during the infancy of cosmetic surgery, and this book was meant to promote this new field to the greater public. "Nature is when imperfect is often very ugly and repellent. A thing cannot be beautiful and ugly." Despite many innovative procedures, Schireson's history is dominated by scandal and his license was revoked two years before his death in 1949. His surgical obsession with the aesthetics of the head and figure fascinate me as a painter. In my surgery paintings I play out the inherent contradictions in his work: the necessity of precision vs. the risk of invention, the power to heal vs the fostering of insecurity. I am fascinated by the good and bad in his past, and I question who is the victim, the villain or the hero as I draw myself in his story.
Cauterize, 40x58, charcoal and gouache, 2012
