This work was based on the earlier series I made about Picasso's Family of Saltimbanques, from 1905. In this case I added two further layers: the figure "Queen" is made of bronze, and half of her face reveals a human skull. Bronze as a sculptural material has often been seen in art as "status-elevating." I wanted to give this anonymous female figure the status of a queen through bronze. In one half of her face you see her skull. That makes the portrait vulnerable and works against the ideology of immortality — it is instead about inner beauty and transience (see the styrofoam block that serves as a pedestal).