Bombastic side eye Shulamite

The characteristic side-eye in female portraits – a pose that may be read as a submissive posture, in truth often stems from the fact that women were long prohibited from drawing from live models and instead directed their gaze diagonally downward into a mirror to portray themselves.(1) This bombastic side eye(2) can be found in this portrait series alongside other more or less subtly defiant poses, standing in as subversive and emancipatory gestures for social and political processes of change in historical as well as contemporary contexts of self-representation.

1) see Jennifer Higgie, The Mirror and the Palette: 500 Years of Women’s Self-Portraits (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2021)

2) The term bombastic side eye refers to a TikTok trend in which users stage a sideways glance to express disdain or disapproval of others’ statements.