Second Life: James Welling at Regen Projects

The subject of James Welling’s Portrait of an Augustan Girl (2022) appears lost in melancholy introspection. She faces the viewer, but her emerald eyes look off to the side and slightly downward. Alarmingly, her nose is smashed and eroded, and a sizable crater occupies the center of her chin, yet without a trace of blood. Furthering the mystery, a round, pinkish form vaguely resembling a nautilus shell sits on her forehead. These strange attributes make sense when one realizes this is not