Girl with Corsage 

Zoe Mozert made this painting of a woman in luxurious garments using oils on canvas. The materials she depicts – fur, satin, jewels – speak of a world of high consumption, brought within reach of many through advertising and mass production. The gleam of the necklace and bracelet, the yielding pile of the stole, and the sheen of the gloves are all rendered with precision. Even though Mozert herself was highly skilled, such effects were increasingly produced photographically, or with the assistance of photorealist techniques. And the mass media that circulated these images depended on the labour of many unseen hands. Mozert’s image invites us to consider the wider social context in which such images circulated. It makes us ask where the boundaries between painting, commercial art, and consumer culture truly lie.