Fabrizio Arrieta’s inspiration stems not from certain paintings or particular artists, but from the history of art itself. Born in 1982 in Costa Rica, the artist has been sketching, illustrating, and painting since a young age, and his scattered field of reference stems from an egalitarian online absorption of both fine art and pop culture. His canvases synthesize the canon of Western art history with the contemporary graphics of fashion advertisements and social media posts. “High” and “low” become flat planes of texture, color, and shape, traveling at a warp speed that mirrors the daily onslaught of virtual culture.

The gorgeous eyes and shapely limbs bisected and trisected into disembodied elements speak not to unattainable glamour, but rather to anonymous solitude and surveillance. The work is executed with meticulous consideration and technique; the deft assemblages call into question contemporary identity construction, increasingly comprised as it is of online encounters and idealized representations. Yet rather than discouraging the viewer with these confrontations, the paintings invigorate and seduce. Wisps of smoky eye and full coral lips draw the eye up and down the otherwise sedate W (2018), and supine legs and lampshades dot the dynamic arrangement of Una historia de afortunadas coincidencias (2019), an electric work that reveals new dimensions with every glance. Blurred and layered limbs and faces are obscured by Picasso-esque reductions and primary colors.

In Arrieta’s work we see supermodels and luxury sofas, wi-fi glitches and reflections distorted by smartphone finger swipes. In his brutal incisions into a glittering world of privilege and perfection, we see everything that we are not, but reimagined anew, in a manner that’s intriguing and accessible. The beauty of fine art is restored to us, minus the pretension and exclusivity; haute couture has been abstracted and democratized. In Arrieta’s paintings, portraits begin to emerge. We see ourselves. We see the future.