She Looks

She Looks

Artist’s Statement: “She Looks” is a piece I painted in 2025 that I feel conflicted about. On one hand, my signature texture is present in the piece, which runs throughout much of my work. However, there’s an uneasiness to the gaze that I’m not sure I was fully aware of while painting it. I hope it offers viewers an opportunity for introspection. I’ll admit, it came dangerously close to being repurposed as a palette for cleaning my brushes, something I’ve been known to do with works I’m not fond of, but I’m very glad this one escaped that fate.

JACOB CHERRY is an artist and Ph.D. student in philosophy living in Pennsylvania. Born in Romania and of Romani heritage, he inherited a tradition of storytelling that takes resilience seriously. His work has appeared in The Penn Review, Tendon Magazine, L’Esprit Literary Review, PHIL LIT Journal, Rawhead, and elsewhere, and shows up in local Pennsylvania spaces where people occasionally stop and look. He keeps a studio practice running in parallel with his dissertation, the two rarely aligning.