GirlsKayleigh and Emily

You are not standing where you would have chosen to stand. That is the whole reason this one exists.

Both of them are looking straight out at you, and they are asking for the attention rather than putting up with it. That is what made me start. It is the only canvas in the series with two women in it, which means there are two of them and one of you.

Something shifted over the weeks. They stopped holding anything back and simply opened up, and from there the work was to paint them at full strength instead of making them easier to look at. When that was done, so was I.

What do you do with it?

Inspired by a photograph of Kayleigh Swenson (@vikingbarbie). One of four canvases of Kayleigh.

Buying it is the easy part

The photograph this came from was made to be scrolled past. It got three seconds, if that. This canvas took weeks, and it will hang on a wall for years and be seen every day.

Ordering it takes a minute. Deciding where it goes is the part that takes nerve, because everyone who walks into that room will see it and think something. That part is yours.

About this work

Original oil on canvas. One of a kind.

• Size — 120 × 90 cm (height × width)
• Edition — one of one, signed. Not a print and not an edition.
• Series — Painted Idols, oil portraits of women who are looked at for three seconds at a time
• Studio — Boekel, the Netherlands
• Shipping — insured from the Netherlands, certificate of authenticity included