First Love 1981

Boris Vallejo created this fairy with oil paints, using techniques drawn from commercial illustration. The work reflects the artist’s skill in airbrushing and layering glazes to achieve the smooth skin tones and otherworldly effects seen here. Vallejo’s paintings were made with popular consumption in mind, as demonstrated through the recurring themes of heroic fantasy and hyper-sexualization that catered to audience's desires. The fairy embodies idealized beauty and vulnerability, further emphasized through her surreal surroundings and large, glassy wings. The smooth, glossy surfaces created with paint lend the artwork a sense of artifice, as if the scene were manufactured rather than observed. Ultimately, Vallejo's painting encourages us to reconsider the cultural values and modes of production that shape our understanding of beauty and fantasy.