“Grilled Mermaids”

"Grilled Mermaids" - Acrylic painting, 20x20cm

It is a painting about loss disguised as spectacle.

Not a fairytale. Not a comfort piece. This painting burns on purpose.

“Grilled Mermaids” isn’t about fantasy — it’s about what we consume.

What we put on our plates. And who society turns into products.

Mermaids here aren’t magical. They’re served. A mirror of how bodies — especially women’s bodies — are objectified, displayed, and consumed without consent.

Uncomfortable? Good. Art isn’t always meant to be pretty — sometimes it’s meant to wake you up.

What are we really consuming?

And at what cost?

The mermaids in this work represent what I call the “shining little angels” of the art world: young artists, pure ideas, fragile creativity, and genuine passion. Traditionally, mermaids symbolize beauty, mystery, and enchantment. In my painting, however, they are no longer mythical beings of wonder — they are objects, processed and consumed.

The act of grilling is intentional. It refers to how the art industry exposes, commodifies, and ultimately sacrifices creativity for profit. What begins as something luminous and alive is slowly transformed into a product meant to satisfy trends, collectors, and market demands. The heat becomes a metaphor for pressure: deadlines, visibility, competition, and monetization.

By placing the mermaids in this violent yet normalized scenario, I wanted to reflect how exploitation in the art world often appears ordinary, even celebrated. The industry applauds success without questioning the cost — emotional, ethical, and creative — paid by those who are consumed along the way.

Grilled Mermaids is not an attack on art itself, but on the systems that drain it of innocence. It asks the viewer to consider their own role: are we protecting what is fragile and magical, or are we enjoying it while it burns?

In the end, the painting is a warning. When art is valued only for its market price, we risk destroying the very beauty that made it worth looking at in the first place.