A Dalmatian, dressed in tailored black gloves and adorned with a metallic collar, holds a glass of amber liquor with studied composure. The portrait stages an encounter between instinct and performance.
 
The animal’s profile is rendered with naturalistic precision, while the surrounding surface fractures into layers of architectural sketches, archival print, and painterly abrasion. Culture accumulates behind the figure like sediment.
 
The glass becomes a ritual object. The gesture — deliberate, almost rehearsed — suggests assimilation into codes of refinement traditionally reserved for human subjects.
 
The work does not merely anthropomorphize. It examines how elegance is constructed — how status, restraint, and taste operate as learned behaviors.
 
Wildness remains present in the animal’s gaze, but it is disciplined, framed, accessorized.
 
Sophistication here is not innate.
It is performed.

Original artwork by Julia Shilo
12 x 19 ½ in | 30 x 50 cm
15 ½ x 22 ½ in | 40 x 57 cm (framed)
Acrylic, charcoal, collage on paper, frame