Elly Smallwood’s monumental paintings portray female bodies as seen through the artist’s confrontational gaze. Her large-scale portraits emotionally engage the viewer with visceral representations of her figures that leave little to the imagination. Smallwood’s interest in the corporeal form was inspired by the intimate figurative paintings of Lucian Freud, as well as the absurdly scaled sculptures of Ron Mueck. Smallwood uses stark colors and aggressive brushstrokes to paint bodies in semi-provocative moments rendered in smears of fleshy paint. The artist’s works have garnered a significant Instagram following and a feature in Playboy magazine, and have been exhibited in group shows in New York, Toronto and Cape Town.