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Ben Charles Weiner's depictions of these subjects, both in isolation and together in tableaux, pair a motif from classical Western painting with a synthetic beauty product, addressing tension between the rapid technological innovation of our time and the persistent fact of our mortality.

Weiner’s paintings of pearls invoke a range of classical paintings, from the Vanitas still life paintings of William Claesz, to Vermeer’s “Girl with a Pearl Earring,” to Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus.” In contrast, Weiner's paintings of blue hair gel as a solitary subject reference the monochrome …