Whitney Museum Acquires Two Facetune Portraits
Gretchen Andrew's Facetune Portraits
Oil On Canvas: Limited series unique oil paintings that reveal the hidden scars of social media filters. Made using AI, algorithms and robotics.
Facetune Portrait: Universal Beauty, USA (Gown)
24" x 40"
Oil on canvas
2025
Gretchen Andrew
Acquired by The Whitney in 20205 (press kit)
Facetune Portrait: Universal Beauty, USA (Gown)
Detail shot, painterly impasto emphasis
FACETUNE PORTRAITS FEATURED & EXHIBITED
Story of Facetune Portraits
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The V&A publishes her book "Search Engine Art"
Gretchen establishes herself as a rising artist at the intersection of traditional medium and technology. She had solo exhibitions with acquisitions at The Monterey Museum of Art and the FC Linz. Her early work on Facetune Portratis was supported by The Knight Foundation and NEA.
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Facetune Portrait Wins Awards At Miami Debut
Facetune portraits immediately made waves with early support from Postmasters and exhibitions at Berlin Art Week, Paris Photo, Untitled Miami (21C Award). In November 2024 gretchen was invited to speak about Facetune Portraits at The Tate Modern. With a broad cultural appeal Facetune Portraits has been featured in mainstream newspapers around the world. Gretchen also received her first mention in Artforum.
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What is Behind Facetune Portraits
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Market & Collections
Facetune Portraits are unique, oil on canvas figurative paintings in a limited series with a closely managed inventory. Only one gown and one bathing suit from each Miss Universe country will be produced.
21c Museum Hotel (with Award)
Francisco Carolinum, Linz
Monterey Museum of Art
RFC Art Collection
Whitney Museum of American Art
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Studio Dedication
Facetune Portraits are produced in Tuxedo, NY in a hybrid studio.
Trained in classical painting with the famed figurative painter Billy Childish, gretchen's studio is a hybrid of high tech and traditional materials. gretchen ran on scholarship at Division 1 Boston College. She brings the rigor of athletics to her studio practice. Take a self-guided online studio visit.
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Press & Visibility
Critical reception, major publications, art world buzz
In 2020 gretchen was on the cover of The Art Gorgeous for being one of the nicest people in the art world.
She has been featured in major and critical press including Artforum, FlashArt, The Washington Post, KUNSTFORUM, Forbes and Vogue.
Understand the Facetune Portrait Process
Facetune Portraits use custom robotics 🤖 to physically apply popular “beautifying” AI 👄 into oil paintings 🎨. The resulting Facetune Portraits reveal the tension between who we are and who AI and algorithms say we should be.
Facetune & BodyTune Apps
Digital facetune
Facetune apps and beauty filters are digital tools used to enhance or alter a person's appearance, especially on social media. Beauty filters, often built into platforms like Instagram and TikTok, use augmented reality (AR) to automatically apply effects like smoother skin, brighter eyes, and slimmer faces in real time. Both have become extremely popular, especially among younger users, shaping modern beauty standards and online presentation.
Oil Paint Printer
Print original image in oil paint
After making an all-white under painting from which the textures and impastos derive, the original image is printed in oil ink onto the white paint. This special printer was developed by MatrLabs.
XY Drawing Robot
Apply modifications physically
The robot looks at what lines have changed between the original image and the new image that is a result of the facetune filter. The robot paints the lines that have changed conducted by Gretchen who determines other aspects of traditional mark making like speed, pressure and brush selection.
Facetune Portrait Subseries
For a full account of all works produced and available across all series
Miss Universe Contestants
Made up of a potential 100 Contestants from 100 different countries, Facetune Portraits: Universal Beauty looks at the homogenizing impact of this monocultural, single AI beauty standard across the faces and bodies of famously beautiful women from around the world. As this same algorithm sculpts the female form into a single, universal look, we see diversity disappear. While unaltered human faces coexist with the algorithmically 'perfected' versions, a double portrait is created – a visualization of reality meeting desire. The result is a full-body portrait of tension, where each brush stroke, each smudge, each painterly contradiction is a record of disagreement between how our faces and bodies actually look and how AI says we should be.
Ballet dancers
Facetune Ballet
Ballet dancers, often celebrated for their physical beauty and grace, have long been associated with unattainable beauty standards. Gretchen's "Facetune Portraits" challenge these idealized notions by applying AI-driven beauty filters to iconic ballet dancers. This juxtaposition highlights the absurdity of striving for perfection in an era where technology can easily distort reality.
By using ballet dancers as subjects, Gretchen taps into a cultural iconography that has long been associated with beauty and grace. This choice allows her to engage with a broader audience, inviting them to reconsider their own perceptions of beauty and the role of technology in shaping these perceptions.
Invite-only Commission Process
Facetune Family Portraits
Normally a portrait seeks to capture a likeness but with AI systematically removing what makes you an individual we explore and emphasize what can be preserved such as setting, relationships, clothing and objects. Visionary patrons have long understood this distinction, championing artists who push the boundaries of portraiture. The Sainsburys, for example, famously supported Francis Bacon, whose visceral portraits captured an essential truth far removed from photographic accuracy. Like them, collectors who embrace innovation recognize that a portrait can be a powerful statement about identity and the contemporary moment, rather than just a record of appearance. This is the heritage Gretchen Andrew's Facetune Portraits proudly join.
Related Studio Subjects & Investigations
Feminine Beauty is Just One Way Al is Trying to Change Us.
Gretchen's studio is a space of evolving questions rather than finished answers. She work across several long-term threads that often intersect, diverge, or return in unexpected ways. Some of these may take form as exhibitions in the future, others remain as research or quiet gestures.
Below are glimpses into a few current inquiries which may develop into a series.
Interested in any of these topics? Schedule a studio visit to learn more.
Manly
AI-driven standards impact men as well. Manly is a highly popular app that makes a different set of modifications.
Aging
AI is being trained to change the appearance of age. In family photos you end up with three+ generations all looking 25.
Interested in this topic?
Professionalization
AI is increasingly used to make you look "professional" - the changes it inflicts are no less interesting than those to make us beautiful.
Nudify
AI-driven apps can now create deepfake porn based on input photos. What does it mean to be undressed by AI?
Interested in this topic?
BodyTune
The body and face are impacted differently
Interested in this topic?
Online Studio Visit
Want to learn more about gretchen's process? Start a self guided Studio Visit.
Get started!
About Facetune Portraits: Universal Beauty
In Gretchen Andrew’s new series of Facetune Portraits, custom robotics scribe the popular AI-driven beauty filters of social media into oil paintings derived from images of quintessential beauty. Normally, on TikTok and via Zoom’s “touch up” feature, these visual modifications occur seamlessly and invisibly. By making this process visible, Facetune Portraits reveals the messy co-existence we have with our digital selves.
Made up of a potential 100 Contestants from 100 different countries, Facetune Portraits: Universal Beauty looks at the homogenizing impact of this monocultural, single AI beauty standard across the faces and bodies of famously beautiful women from around the world. As this same algorithm sculpts the female form into a single, universal look, we see diversity disappear. While unaltered human faces coexist with the algorithmically 'perfected' versions, a double portrait is created – a visualization of reality meeting desire. The result is a full-body portrait of tension, where each brush stroke, each smudge, each painterly contradiction is a record of disagreement between how our faces and bodies actually look and how AI says we should be.
These works outwardly portray the absurd, and too-real scars of the hidden ‘perfections’ that lurk behind so many of the images we experience – revealing our desire not just to be beautiful, but to be like everyone else, accepted as much by the algorithms as by our peers.
Not Her First Rodeo
Prior to the Sept 2024 launch of Facetune Portrait's Gretchen Andrew's work was already collected by museums from America and Austria
Gretchen Andrew is known for her unique merger of traditional artistic mediums such as photography and oil paint with advanced technologies such as robotics, algorithm and artificial intelligence. She first became known starting in 2019 with her hacks on major art world and political institutions.
She trained in London with the artist Billy Childish from 2012-2017. In 2018 the V&A Museum released her book Search Engine Art. Gretchen's work has recently been featured in Artforum, Fast Company, Flash Art, The Washington Post, Fortune Magazine, and The Financial Times.
