The Story Behind Sexy Bitch

Sexy Bitch is a positive affirmation. 

The words are direct, but the mirror is what really makes the piece work. When you stand in front of it, you become part of the artwork.

It tells you that you are the sexy bitch.

You bought it. You chose those words. By putting it on your wall and looking into it, you have agreed to receive the compliment. You are a Sexy Bitch.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

There is something of the old question:

"Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?"

Except this mirror does not wait to be asked.

It gives you its answer immediately.

Sexy Bitch

The reflective mirror film pulls the viewer into the image, but the reflection is deliberately imperfect. You can see yourself, although perhaps not in the way you expect from an ordinary mirror.

That is where it becomes part compliment and part challenge.

Beauty is subjective. Perfection is overrated. The important thing is whether you are prepared to own the image looking back at you.

A Compliment Can Still Offend Someone

Words do not always land in the way they were intended. I seem to offend people when I really do not mean to. I once said a lady looked like a lion because she had curled her hair. I truly meant it in a positive way although I don't think it was received as such!

So you see, you can say something as a compliment and still offend the person receiving it. Meaning comes partly from the person speaking, but also from the person hearing it.

Calling somebody a sexy bitch could sound positive, funny, aggressive or completely inappropriate depending on who says it, who hears it and the relationship between them.

This artwork changes that exchange.

When you buy the piece, you choose the words for yourself. Nobody has shouted them at you from across a room or decided how you should feel about your appearance.

You have placed them on your own wall.

The mirror gives them back to you.

But Is It a Sexy Bitch?

There is also a joke within the image.

Is the character itself supposed to be a sexy bitch?

Maybe.

Someone once said that it looked like Velma from Scooby-Doo.

I did not copy Velma, but once the comparison was made, the thought stayed in my head.

Within that familiar cartoon stereotype, there is the supposedly glamorous woman, Daphne, with the long hair and then Velma, the clever, geeky one with the glasses.

So who gets to be called sexy?

Is it the character in the artwork? Is it the person looking into the mirror? Is it both of them—or neither?

That uncertainty makes the piece more interesting to me.

It would be very dull if it simply showed somebody conventionally beautiful alongside the words Sexy Bitch. You would look at it once, understand it and move on.

This asks you to look twice.

First at the artwork.

Then at yourself.

An Imperfect Reflection

The bright green foil-leaf hair, red heart and hand-drawn acrylic lettering are not trying to create a tasteful, polished portrait.

The image has humour and attitude.

The mirror film does not give you a flawless reflection either. It shifts as you move and changes according to the person standing in front of it.

That feels more truthful.

None of us sees ourselves completely objectively. Our reflection is mixed up with mood, confidence, memory and whatever somebody else might have said to us that day.

Sometimes you look and feel fantastic.

Sometimes you do not.

The words remain there either way.

Own It

Sexy Bitch is an affirmation, but it is not a gentle one.

It is part compliment, part challenge and partly a joke about who gets to decide what beauty looks like.

The artwork cannot make you believe the words.

But you chose the mirror.

You stood in front of it.

Now you have to decide whether to own them.

Sexy Bitch. Own it

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