Vortex of Platitudes (People's fantasies are their problem)

Meg Stoios, 2023, Oil on Canvas, 112 x 150cm

Vortex of Platitudes (People's fantasies are their problem) re-imagines the artist in the role of a waitress serving an anxiety-ridden patron (modelled by and representing the artist's now ex-partner). Behind them the trilby-hatted, beer drinking oracle archetype, whose face consists of raised globs of discarded paint, bears witness to foreboding.

This work is at once acutely personal and universal evoking power and labour imbalances within a relationship from a feminist perspective.

"Platitudes" pose poorly as wisdom, and while fooling no-one, may be used explicitly or inadvertently to suppress or mollify, and by extension - control. The title references controlling narratives in relationships and quotes Andy Warhol to express the damage fantasy plays on our realities.