During the early 1970s Clive Barker worked on the theme of classical Greek sculpture. Having met Man Ray in 1969 at the Hannover Gallery, Barker started thinking about the surrealist's handling of Venus de Milo, wrapped in rope.
'Portrait of an Unknown Beauty', with the head of Venus de Milo still recognisable by its characteristic tilt, is being mysteriously shrouded like the drowned or suffocated figures pictured in paintings by Magritte, whom Barker knew personally.
The sculpture is the ultimate in disguised reality which the Surrealists played on. By wrapping a head in cloth, the very sense of 'portrait' and identity is taken away. The juxtaposition of the imagined softness of human skin and the hard chrome plating questions the inherited notions of beauty.