I first encountered several early works from the Facetune Portraits series in person at Galerie Vossen in Paris. Among them were a self-portrait by Andrew, a family portrait, and several works based on images of Berlin-based influencers. The paintings were visually distinct and brought together people of different races and genders, shown in different poses and settings.
As I moved closer, my attention shifted from the painted figures to the white lines drawn by the robot, which resembled scars. What had initially appeared visually composed became increasingly unsettling. Eyes were enlarged, jaws sharpened, lips and breasts made fuller, and bodies pulled toward different proportions. These marks showed the disagreement between how the figures appeared and how the application suggested they should look. The intervention felt almost like a violation, and I remember laughing, not at the figures or at the violence of the alterations, but at the sudden clarity and absurdity of what the paintings revealed. A process that usually remains smooth, private, and almost invisible had been exposed through these artworks.
This encounter made me question further how contemporary beauty ideals are accelerated through AI systems, and how oppressive power structures do not disappear but change form.
What happens when the male gaze appears as an algorithmic gaze?
Rosalind Gill’s work on postfeminist media culture helps answer this question. Gill examines how women are encouraged to present themselves in particular ways while these choices are framed as free and personal. She questions whether practices such as plastic surgery and beauty filtering can truly be understood as individual preferences when women’s bodies become increasingly similar through them.
Presented as forms of empowerment, these practices tend to produce a supposedly “ideal” body or face, characterized by hairless skin, slim waists, and larger hips and breasts, features that continue to align with dominant male fantasies. Promoted through twenty-first-century neoliberal ideals such as self-improvement and self-determination, women are encouraged to reshape their bodies according to standards of femininity constructed by media and marketing. AI-powered beauty applications intensify this process by translating those norms into personalized suggestions for enhancement, making them easier to internalize without appearing as external demands.
Decisions that are presented as freely chosen and deeply personal repeatedly lead toward the same body
Andrew makes this homogenization visible in Facetune Portraits: Universal Beauty (2025), a series based on images of Miss Universe contestants from different national and cultural backgrounds, all of whom have already been selected according to conventional standards of physical beauty. Andrew puts these images through the same technical and artistic process.
The resulting paintings show contestants on the runway, posing for the jury. Each appears in a distinct outfit, sometimes a custom-made evening gown and at other times a bikini, chosen to complement individual features and, in some cases, reflect cultural or national identity. This emphasis on individuality is reinforced through differences in color, pose, gesture, and texture, as Andrew uses brushes and palette knives to decide what to bring forward in each portrait. Yet this uniqueness is disrupted by the white marks left by the robot. Across the series, the algorithm proposes remarkably similar adjustments: longer legs, narrower waists, fuller hips and breasts, and altered lips and eyes.
Left: Gretchen Andrew, Facetune Portrait: Universal Beauty, Puerto Rico, 2025. Oil on canvas.
Right: Gretchen Andrew, Facetune Portrait: Universal Beauty, Equatorial Guinea, 2025. Oil on canvas.
Andrew notes that, in some instances, the algorithm also alters elements beyond the body, including the contestants’ gowns. In the case of Miss Guinea, it attempted to distort the dress by smudging the excess fabric extending beyond the body. Andrew chose to preserve this alteration rather than correct it for visual coherence. In the portrait of Miss Pakistan, who wore a gown rather than a bikini for cultural reasons, the application attempted to accentuate her body through the fabric, making her features more visible and sexualized.
These examples suggest that the algorithm subordinates racial and cultural differences to a single idealized figure. By applying similar corrections across distinct subjects, it flattens individual features and pulls the contestants toward a shared silhouette. Differences remain visible in clothing, pose, and cultural presentation, yet the body is subjected to the same corrective logic in each case. Universal Beauty therefore reveals how beauty applications standardize women’s bodies even within a competition presented as a celebration of international diversity.
