Anj Smith (b. 1979)

'Anj Smith's meticulous yet elusive paintings explore the dark underside of the fashion industry's quest for the new, in images that are a cross between a bricolage of current style and momento mori. With the eye of a miniaturist she observes the relationship between street and couture style as played out by her female subjects that are both threatening and tortured by the clothes they wear and the poses they strike. Here fashion has become the new drug, with all its alienating and ecstatic possibilities' (P. Bronstein quoted from https://sartorialart.com).