At first, Peregrine Honig’s illustrations of young, slender, and rosy-cheeked women appear to be harmless and even adorable. On closer inspection, their unfortunate circumstances become apparent, and their beauty is counteracted by the ugly realities they face. This juxtaposition is for Honig a way to critique how society finds contemporary issues “much more captivating when the victim is portrayed as a modelesque woman,” as the artist has commented.

Honig has worked with the image of the fashion model or pin-up before and considers the figure a darker part of American pop culture’s portrayals of women. In the “Fashion” series, the artist has more readily embraced dark humor. The fashion-forward women are depicted in poses that could be taken directly from any fashion magazine, their various maladies reduced to another marketable brand. 

Label from Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One: Humor and Satire from the Collection, November 19, 2016–March 19, 2017