Benjamin Koelewijn: A Visual Analysis

The image I chose, titled Anxiety, was created by Benjamin Koelewijn. The picture shows a nude woman with a burning scalp covering her body in different ways. The flames are burning a cloth on her head, and the cloth shields her eyes. Her face is nearly void of expression, and is smeared with oil, along with her shoulders, arms, chest, and torso. Her right hand clenches her left shoulder, and a blanket is draped between her arms. Her arms are covering her chest, she’s covered in oil, the right side of her body is partially covered by a blanket, and her head is covered with some sort of cloth. She looks to be shying away from the camera, as her body is slightly hunched over and turned away from the audience.
What first drew my attention was that the woman’s head was on fire. The flames are burning only the material covering her head, leaving the rest of her body untouched. The angle of the flames and smoke suggests that she is facing the wind. This causes the fire and smoke to flow behind her, giving her access to fresh air. Among the lighter colored flames, there looks to be either a thick substance erupting from the back of her skull, or possibly a piece of the fabric that has burned up more than the rest.
The woman’s face has a few interesting features. The fabric that covers the woman’s …show more content…
She is clearly on fire, which should be causing her a substantial amount of pain, but she looks almost serene. However, her lip, jaw, and nose position indicate that she has feelings of insecurity. This, combined with her posture and how she is covering herself with her arms leads me to believe that she is more upset with the fact that she is nude than with the flames searing her scalp. This leads me to think that, perhaps the flames are a figment of her imagination, and are just there to signify her burning thoughts and feelings. It could also mean that her inner turmoil is more painful than the physical