Women on digital filters

This is a limited series of works that started in 2015.

Concept

This series explores how digital editing tools transform and redefine perceptions of female beauty. Beginning with carefully staged portraits of women, the artist creates paired works that juxtapose the original image with a digitally altered version. Each pair highlights a specific computer-generated effect — such as blur, posterize, crop, or distortion— that subtly alters the facial features.

By requiring viewers to observe both images simultaneously, the series encourages a side-by-side comparison that reveals the often unnoticed impact of digital manipulation. The work challenges the observer to question the implicit assumptions of what a face should look like, exposing the influential role of digital tools in shaping contemporary notions of beauty and identity.

Inspiration

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Process

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Current Works

Cristina with posterize
Cristina with posterize, Oil on canvas-wood 35 x 50 cm, 7×10 cm, 2025, Miltos Despoudis

A portrait of Cristina with light from below. A second small painting is showing the same person but with a posterize effect. The bigger work features soft light transitions. The small one in the other hand has banded color transitions. Posterization is reducing the amount of used colors and as a side effect it distorts further the image.

Dedicated Artwork Page:
https://miltosdespoudis.gr/archive/paintings/a2506230

Veronica with posterize
Veronica with posterize, Oil on wood 35 x 50 cm, 4 × 5,5 cm, 2025, Miltos Despoudis

A portrait of Veronica looking side ways. She has a second tiny portrait that is painted in a similar pose but now has a posterize like effect on it. The colors are enhanced and the transitions are sharpened.

Dedicated Artwork Page:
https://miltosdespoudis.gr/archive/paintings/a2508230/

Enza with facial blur crop
Enza with facial blur crop, Oil colors on wood 28 x 40 cm, 4 x 4 cm., 2025, Miltos Despoudis

A portrait of Enza with closed eyes. Her eyes and mouth are blurred and distorted. A secondary work has only the mouth displayed with more clarity.

Dedicated Artwork Page:
https://miltosdespoudis.gr/archive/paintings/a2507060/

Maia with stretching
Maia with stretching, Oil on Wood 24 x 30 cm, 24 x 2cm, 2025, Miltos Despoudis

A portrait of Maia sitting at the table. Her eyes are closed and she looks calm. A second picture of her is displayed below that is her again but her image vertically stretched. We were having a coffee, the window was on open on one side.

The distortion in reality exists in a similar way in both images. The stretched image is not an accurate stretched image of the top. Or the top images is not following the image at the bottom. Nevertheless they give the illusion that they depict the same person.

Dedicated Artwork Page:
https://miltosdespoudis.gr/archive/paintings/a2507050/

Maia with inverted zoom
Maia with inverted zoom, Acrylics on canvas-wood 70 x 70 cm , 7×12 cm, 2016, Miltos Despoudis

A portrait of Maia looking left at he window. A second smaller work depicts a close up of the right eye in false color.

Dedicated Artwork Page:
https://miltosdespoudis.gr/archive/paintings/a16102700/

Vasilina with blur
Vasilina with Blur Filter, Acrylics and Oil Colors on Canvas and Wood 50X66 cm., 2015, Miltos Despoudis

A portrait of Vasilina sitting at my studio in Thessaloniki. She has a yellow tint light. A second smaller painting is depicting her again but with a blurry effect.

Dedicated Artwork Page:
https://miltosdespoudis.gr/archive/paintings/a18011200/

Noor with horizontal displacement
Noor with Horizontal Displacement
Noor with Horizontal Displacement, Egg Tempera on Wood and Polymer Clay 12x12cm, 2015, Miltos Despoudis

A portrait of Noor. Her figure is displaced to the left making one half positioned left and the other hald to the right side of the painted area. A second smaller painting depicts her silhouette in the correct way in the middle.

Dedicated Artwork Page:
https://miltosdespoudis.gr/archive/paintings/a18053100/