Katya Tsareva’s new series Tender revolves around beauty as a myth. Today, this myth appears once again to extend across genders, with standards of beauty imposed on men as well as women. Working from found images and her own photographs, Katya transforms her models through processes of mediation and refinement. Using an academic painterly approach, she meticulously renders these altered images as though painting from life, examining the body as a sexual object — something both frightening and exciting, attractive and repulsive at the same time.