Orange VanRiae

I scrolled past her and went back. It was the sweat.

At that point I decide nothing. I just save it, and then it sits in the archive until it starts asking for something. This one sat there for months.

Then days at a time, a week of nothing, more days. That is not a technique. It is how long it takes me to look at one image properly. The photograph was built for three seconds of someone's attention. I spent weeks inside it.

At some point it stops. Not because the painting is finished, but because I am. The image has been dealt with, it no longer pulls at me, and I can go on to the next one.

Something in this canvas is faintly vulgar and it never once tips into cheap. I painted her four times and I still cannot find the line it walks.

What do you do with it?

Inspired by a photograph of Riae Suicide (@riae_). One of four canvases of Riae.

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 × 100 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