The myth of beauty and the beast dates back to the antiquity, when satyrs and nymphs were chasing about in the groves of imagination. This half-man, half-beast figure, the inseparable supplement of the woman idealized as beauty, appears on a drawing and on the background wall of a self-portrait painted in a rococo palace. The perfection of the ominous, overstrained charm and the ideal, harmonious scenes carry a suppressed tension, while the postures and facial expressions keep secrets. There is always a symbolic animal next to the beautiful women of idillic scenes – a tiger, a horse, or King Kong itself of an early blood-curdler.
Once again, the paintings and drawings are median derivations, personal and found photos, images of family members and actresses. The representation of desired beauty creates a distance between the audience and the portrayed ones, where the subject, the personality is mere fiction.
Brigitta Muladi