SJ Fuerst, Great Date Ken, 2012

Three days since the big V (that’s Valentine’s Day, of course), the flowers are wilting and memories of packed-out restaurants filled with both the furtive footsie-displays of new love and the palpable pass-agg of longer relationships are fading. Something that isn’t fading from our minds at least is this hilarious/bleak/weird image by American realist painter, SJ Fuerst. It’s uncannily photograph-like, but is in fact created with oil paints to create an image that gives a surreal nipple-twist to Ken dolls and sex dolls alike. What’s going on here? We’re not too sure, but we’re not too sure we care either. This painting is one of eleven that will go on show as part of Fuerst’s solo show Forest Fresh at Lily Agius Gallery, Malta opening on on 22 March.