Sara Pope’s contemporary pop paintings depict plumped-up, glossy human lips. She renders these glamorous lips in a hyperrealistic style, but enhances their luster to suggest viscous fluids. Pope worked as a shoe designer for over a decade, and her paintings are informed by her experience in the fashion industry. She begins with photographs from shoots she stages with models, which she uses as reference images. Rendered with thin, oil-diluted paint, her canvases are slick and precise. They explore ideas circulating around conventions of beauty and aspirations toward a feminine ideal while emphasizing the communicative power of small gestures.
