Like many, the pandemic forced Brooklyn, New York-based artist Beth Parker to confront thoughts and emotions that the rhythms of daily life had long allowed her to ignore. Her latest series of paintings explores this experience through the act of self-portraiture. “I was watching a global crisis alone in my apartment, torn between the desire to help and the fear that my very presence would make things worse,” she explains. “I started painting my own figure, as I could not in good conscience project this feeling of inadequacy onto anyone else. I turned my figure away, blocked her eyes with stubbornly long hair, and fixed her face backwards—coping mechanisms for venturing forwards into an unforeseeable future. This lack of eye contact allows my figure to serve as a vessel for others’ emotions, a way to absorb them and, in the sharing, perhaps lighten them just a bit.”

See more from Beth Parker below!