Fashion Worm

This is a painting that I made in 2004, that I call "Fashion Worm...or, The Perfect Nose."  It is 48" wide by 36" high, and is acrylic on canvas.  The original stretcher bars had warped over the few years since its completion, so I recently removed the canvas from those stretchers and put it on new ones.
I had some of the general ideas for this painting floating around in my skull prior to painting this, but I was really inspired when I happened to watch a special on MTV about young men & women who were getting plastic surgery for purely cosmetic reasons.  I was struck by the thought of just how far we as a society are willing to warp our bodies and minds for the sake of appearances; how the "next big thing" that society clamors for and is fascinated by is often just watered-down pablum spewed forth by media executives and their focus groups; and by the idea that no matter how much we twist ourselves up over superficial bullshit, death is always there waiting for us in the end...the great equalizer.  I tried to get those ideas across in this painting.