Painting the Tension of Technology’s Promise of Perfection

Technology offers us a seductive promise: a perfect self. With just a swipe or a filter, our faces can be reshaped, our flaws erased, our identities streamlined into something algorithmically approved. But what happens to us when perfection is always one edit away?

Gretchen Andrew’s Facetune Portraits captures the tension between the promise of technological perfection and the reality of human imperfection.

Facetune Portraits is my response to that question. Using oil paint, I make visible the tension between our real, lived selves and the digital ideals we’re pressured to embody. Unlike filters, oil paint resists perfection. It celebrates texture, imperfection, and individuality. Every brushstroke becomes an act of resistance against the smoothing effects of technology.

The promise of a perfect self may seem harmless, even aspirational. But the cost is subtle and pervasive: anxiety, loss of individuality, and the erosion of what makes us human. By painting these tensions, I invite viewers to reflect on their own relationship with technology’s standards.

The work reminds us that imperfection is not failure. It’s the evidence of being real, alive, and unfiltered. Painting the Tension of Technology’s Promise of Perfection