The Mirror
MICHAEL DOLE
The Mirror
2017
Artist Michael Dole’s The Mirror (2017) stages a confrontation between a woman and her own doubled image. Two near-identical figures knot together on the floor, one facing us, the other turned inward, hair falling like a curtain over her face. It is not clear whether we are seeing two bodies, a reflection or the same self split in two. Skin is rendered in long, faceted strokes that make the bodies feel both sensual and slightly unreal, while the background dissolves into veils of pink, blue and yellow, like the residue of an advertisement that has been half scrubbed away.
This ambiguity is the point. The Mirror is less a nude than a critique of the culture that produces nudes on tap. The painting sits in the tense space where self love, as sold by the wellness and beauty industries, morphs into obsession and self surveillance. The woman clings to herself because the world keeps asking her to be both subject and object, to perform confidence while quietly dismantling herself to fit the frame. Depression here does not appear as melodrama but as heaviness in the limbs, a slumped spine, a gaze that never quite meets ours. Dole refuses to give us a neat empowerment arc. Instead he holds up a mirror to a society that has turned self absorption into a survival strategy, then has the nerve to blame individuals for drowning in their own reflection.
The Mirror is a painting that does not look away and does not let the viewer look away either. It asks a hard question: when we talk about loving ourselves, whose standard of love are we obeying and who is profiting from our perpetual dissatisfaction.
Details
Artist Michael Dole’s The Mirror is a provocative, psychologically charged work that uses a doubled female figure to explore how contemporary culture turns self love into labour. Blurring the line between intimacy and performance, the painting exposes the illusion, obsession and quiet despair that sit beneath the glossy rhetoric of confidence and body positivity.
MICHAEL DOLE
'The Mirror' 2017
Acrylic on canvas
91cm x 61cm
Edition: Unique original (1/1)
Orientation: Portrait
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Artist Michael Dole is a rare hybrid of director, filmmaker and artist whose practice has unfolded over more than three decades and across four continents. Now based in the Byron Bay Hinterland, he moves fluently between set and studio, allowing each discipline to infect the other. His films carry the stillness and compositional rigour of painting, while his paintings feel charged with the tempo, rhythm and emotional cadence of cinema. The result is a body of work preoccupied less with spectacle than with the subtle pressure points of lived experience – the quiet, often overlooked moments where a life tilts.
Critically, Dole’s work resists cynicism. Whether he is collaborating with global musicians or developing intimate fine art series, his focus remains on the inter lives of people and the worlds they inhabit. Exhibiting locally and internationally, and increasingly mentoring the next generation of image-makers, he uses each project as an inquiry into how we see and how we are seen. At the core of his practice is a insightful, demanding ambition. To create work that meets people where they are, tells the truth about being human and stays with you long after you have walked away.
SHIPPING & DELIVERY
All artworks are shipped from the Byron Bay Hinterland, Australia, securely packed and fully insured in transit.
Within Australia we offer a flat Standard Shipping rate of $50 AUD, with delivery generally 2 to 8 business days from dispatch.
For customers outside Australia, Standard International shipping is available at a flat rate of $150 AUD, with delivery typically 5 to 9 business days from dispatch.
You will receive tracking details as soon as your artwork leaves the studio so you can follow its journey to you.
International customers are responsible for any local customs duties or taxes that may apply in their country.