giustina surbone
Lipstick and Cigarettes, 2015
oil and Revlon lipcolor on canvas
60inx60in
 
 
I make paintings that are figuratively idiosyncratic portraits and narratives of my life experience. Intentionally provocative, my work is created to deliver a direct impact to the viewer by virtue of its size, style, and the psychological and/or political force of my subject matter. Lipstick and Cigarettes is a large scale mostly monochromatic oil painting that also incorporates bits of Revlon's Scarlet Red Liquid Lip Color. Lip prints, or latent traces of lipstick are visible in the painting like the lipstick stains left on a napkin or side of a coffee cup. It is a self-portrait, a noir painting depicting a solitary woman sitting outside somewhere on steps, late evening, posed provocatively smoking a cigarette, waiting.