I use dolls painted in a realistic manner in erotic poses to draw the viewer into my critique of the way in which sexuality is pervading our entire culture through television, movies, fashion, advertising and our general day-to-day life.

I have chosen to paint dolls rather than to paint nude men and women because dolls, even though they are not as sexually explicit as the human figure, can still suggest the overindulgence of sexuality in our society today. Hence these dolls become a more neutral vehicle.

This is shown by isolating the figures of the dolls on a southern yellow pine flakeboard with no background to distract from the action being depicted.

www.bettyschaefer.com

“Our biological thinking and existence [will merge] with our technology, resulting in a world that is still human but that transcends our biological roots. There will be no distinction…between human and machine or between physical and virtual reality.” -Ray Kurzweil

The Altered Iterations series is an examination of the emergence of robots and clones. Robots may eventually surpass the computation power of humans; that is, they may become smarter than we are and replace humans in many contexts. And one day, the bots may clone themselves. In the Altered Iteration series, some of the shadow-figures appear to be entirely human; others seem more alien and robotic; and others are indeterminate, ambiguous.

November 2006

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