Brutalization of the human visage an ever occurring painting theme. Since early modernism human features bludgeoned to bloom bruise bouquets, or apply rictus like geometries, portraits of a stroke. On and on painters rushing to do injustice to portraits. It became a joke so safe it could be featured in children’s movies, and so you've got potatoes exclaiming, “Hey look at me, I’m Picasso." These aren’t Bacon, for whom, as Deleuze saw through so quickly, the face was subregister to the thing-head, the meat slab head. Here, the face is more figurative idea, an outline, a Jawlensky like framework for which to hang wanton libidinal paint. A Martin Creed portrait mistake that continues long past the child crying for it to stop, I mean he’s already dead. And but so the joke so played out, that today our countenance used as a rack for paint is a small irony. We find its horror almost playful, cute, even interesting, a learned tolerance for pain.
