„Fashion or Obsession” by Anna Halarewicz is an artistic vision of the fashion worlds and an individual addicted to rules,trends and slogans promoted by this world. Among fragments of fashion-able images, logos of Chanel, Gucci, Prada, slogans from the newest editions of Vogue, there is a woman's silhouette and her unchangeable symbol of femininity– high heels. Often deprived of individual features, with no face or with a brand logo or an animal mask instead of it – the woman created by Anna Halarewicz is a product and at the same time a victim of the fashion world, she builds her identity basing on the constant consumption of designer products. With buying, she tries to fill the existential emptiness. How far are we willing to go in losing ourselves to obsessively follow the trends? Is aspiring to become “fashion” our choice or a try to adapt to imposed canons?These are the questions niggling Anna Halarewicz, who reflects in her works, often as in a distorting mirror, the aspirations of many women to keep up with the trends imposed by stylists and fashion designers.
The expressive drawing combined with a bright spot reflects the dynamics, glam, vividness of the fashion world, at the same time a divided figure resembling a mannequin from shop windows squeezed in the painting heralds some sort of oppressiveness of this environment and the business close to it. The artist uses strong, contrast colours, slogans relating to the loud aesthetics of the advertisements, animal motives also appear in her works – associated with furs, which might be the synonym of luxury but at the same time of wilderness and extravagance.
The body fragmentation used by Halarewicz refers to the methods used in advertisements of trendy products, where you divide the woman's body into consumption areas – lips, eyes,cheeks, hair, breasts, skin, hands, hips, thighs and waist are all shown separately as small fragments.
The paintings from the “Fashion and Obsession” series on one hand enter the world of fashion in an art's eye, on the other are a deep diagnosis of that world, which under a very pleasant surface hides a less pleasant hidden agenda.
