This is the first and only limited edition archival uv pigment reproduction print of the 2020-21 painting Untitled created in collaboration with Laumont Photographics. An edition of 50 signed and numbered by the artist.

This unapologetic image was painted at the height of the pandemic when unprecedented political and sociological forces transformed the modern cultural landscape and state mandates forced their subjects around the world into lockdowns within the confines of their home.

In New York City where this painting was created, palpable political tensions ignited and a culture war rampaged through the empty streets of Manhattan, turning the metropolis into an unrecognizable dystopia. New conceptualizations of the Human Being emerged and the city was dominated by a postmodern and deconstructivist ideals of race, gender, and sex.

This image is as much a reaction to its context as it is a result of the personal psychology of the artist in a time of profound change. Begun with a trip to Sephora and a vintage store to purchase make-up and a woman's dress, Chahine dressed in drag to model for the subject of this painting.

As the painting continued, Chahine evolved the image to reflect a complex androgyny, utilizing a trope of mirrors to warp and entangle the composition. The resulting image, with its many symbolic references, is impossible and otherworldly, and recalls mythological imagery in both eastern and western cultures.

Chahine regards the self-portrait as the fundament of this picture. In using oneself as subject the artist cannot critique the external world but rather experience and inhabit it as a reflection. The ideas represented in a self-portrait are inevitably embodied in the psyche of the artist, as the process is not one of outward analysis but internal manifestation.

The artist is both attracted to and repulsed by this image. Though Chahine ultimately regards it with a strong sense of triumph.