I. Softer

The saying “you are what you eat” takes on a different meaning when considering the biological evolution of humankind. The human species Homo Erectus mastered the use of fire—through skills such as planning and calculation—and then began to cook meat, fish, and roots. The food became softer, and the jaws smaller, allowing the brains to grow and new neurons to form. By cooking food, digestion began outside the body. Consequently, stomachs became smaller, and Homo Sapiens could walk upright more easily and even run. Less energy was needed for the gut system, freeing up more energy for the growing brain. The food we ate made us who we are.

In 2025, the journal Appetite published results from a study on junk food. The Norwegian research team fed female rats a junk food diet for six weeks and studied changes in their neuroactivity. The junk food weakened the rats’ appetite for natural rewards, including the desire for sexual activity. The researchers argue that thick kebab sauce, greasy burgers, and soft, factory-baked bread contribute to slowing down reproductive drive. A consequence of a lower sexual drive for the human species would be changes in the biological development of humankind. In this context, “you are what you eat” would take on a more literal meaning than before..

II. More Similar

Throughout human history, aesthetics has been linked to communication, power, and identity. What might first seem superficial or decorative can reveal complex and often powerful cultural and historical identities. Whether it concerns the ornamentation on a ceramic vase, jewelry, or tattoos, aesthetic expressions and practices have either created a sense of belonging or expressed individual identity. But aesthetics can also serve the opposite purpose—alienating cultures and individuals from others.

Aesthetic has played a central role in the development of consumer society. In the 1920s, the American Edward Bernays, Sigmund Freud’s nephew, laid the groundwork for a new phase in this development. Bernays developed his uncle’s theories of human desires to connect shopping with a sense of well-being. He exploited a fundamental human drive—aesthetic desire—to manipulate the masses into buying things they didn’t really need, to fill their individual craving for pleasure while also meeting capitalism’s structural need for growth. Throughout the 20th century, beauty and aesthetics became increasingly linked to makeup and beauty products. In the last five decades, Western consumer society has cultivated an aesthetic culture where trends change rapidly. However, aesthetic expressions have become increasingly less individual. Products, faces, and desires have become more uniform and similar to each other.

III. Deeper

In the painting series TAKE OUT (2025), Lena Trydal explores the aesthetics of desire in our time. Since her debut in the public scene in 2022, she has showcased uncomfortable, humorous, and strange aspects of Western mass culture through a distinctive visual language rooted in the classical Western figurative painting tradition. However, both her approach and formal expression break from the classical, drawing inspiration primarily from Google Images (e.g., Royalty Free Stock Images) and by swiping and scrolling through our contemporary visual mass culture on TikTok or Instagram. Trydal’s paintings often depict figures posing for the gaze of the masses. In TAKE OUT, three female figures appear in a climax moment, surrendering to the irresistibility of junkfood. Their lip-gloss shimmer and food fat drips over their gel nails. The women’s eyes—framed by false lashes and brows styled with brow lamination techniques—reveal the intense pleasure of giving in to temptation. Yet, their almost animalistic desire isn’t solely directed at the ultra-processed food. The three women also desire the beholder’s gaze. The rectangular shape of the canvases reflects the screens they pose for. They desire their own mirror image and they crave the digital gazes just as intensely as they desire the soft food.

Western art history is deeply rooted in the divide between form and content: ‘Form’ refers to the style, techniques, media, and materials of the artwork, while ‘content’ refers to the representation or mimesis—what is depicted. Trydal engages in dialogue with Western art history by portraying figures in a figurative and realistic style. Throughout art history, realism has been expressed in various ways, but a common trait of realistic style is that human figures are neither stylized nor idealized; they are meant to convey the unique and distinctive traits of the figures. However, Trydal’s three female figures have relatively few distinctive features to highlight individuality. Although the paintings depict three different women, their similarity is striking; they use the same contouring techniques for makeup, have equally straight, white teeth, and all have sleek, blow-dried hair—a sort of assembly-line aesthetic.

It’s not just the content of the paintings that refers to the superficial and uniform aspects of contemporary mass culture. For Trydal, figurative painting itself is associated with mass culture. And within the hierarchies of contemporary art—a low culture. Additionally, Trydal emphasizes the painting’s characteristics as a flattening medium through techniques that reflect the interplay between flatness and uniformity in Western popular culture. The figurative motifs and painterly execution might initially seem trivial, but Trydal’s visual universe has a complex conceptual context embedded within the surface medium. Trydal often uses classical glazing techniques to soften or enhance colors, almost like a setting spray in ‘soft contouring’ makeup. She highlights some colors and blends others, so the canvas surface resembles an airbrush filter. Often, it is contour powder, highlighter, and flash lighting that adds life and glow to the figures’ faces, not natural daylight. In Trydal’s visual universe, figure and surface—and thereby form and content—become increasingly similar.

As a sort of coda to the TAKE OUT series, Prêt-à-Manger (Triple) (2024) stands alone. Three open white containers with fries, ketchup, and fried chicken float in an undefined, blue-green sphere. Our ancestors tamed fire, changed their way of eating, and in doing so, changed themselves. Today, additives, sugar, and fats have been linked to changes in brain chemistry, metabolism, and even genetics over time. By placing the plastic containers in this blue-green, indefinable space—like a digital or virtual landscape—Trydal reminds us that Western consumer culture is increasingly detached from biological roots, building instead on mediated, manipulated stimuli. Liberally, full of humor, and without moral judgments, Trydal’s TAKE OUT depicts what is deeply human in the age of surfaces.

Lena Trydal (b. 1994 in Kristiansand, Norway) works with figurative paintings on contemporary pop- and internet culture. She has a bachelor's degree in aesthetic studies from the University of Oslo and has studied fine arts at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague (The Hague, Netherlands) and Metàfora (Barcelona). In 2022, Trydal participated in the opening exhibition of the new National Museum in Norway, "I Call it Art", causing a lot of media attention for her satirical portrait of the Norwegian Royal family. She has also exhibited at Mikey Laundry Art Garden, Bergen (2025), IRL Gallery New York (2024), KÖSK, Oslo (2024), Søgne Gamle Prestegård (2024), Kunstnernes Efterårsudstilling at Den Frie Udstillingsbygning, Copenhagen (2021 & 2023), The State's art exhibition, Autumn Exhibition at Kunstnernes Hus (2022), Arteriet, Kristiansand (2018) and Roodkapje Rot(t)terdam,Nederland (2015), among others. Works by Trydal have been purchased by the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design (Oslo).