Raised in Latvia, Ella Kruglyanskaya (b.1978) moved to the US in the mid-1990s, graduating with degrees in painting from Cooper Union and Yale School of Art. Her playful, cartoon-like images of voluptuous women combine painterly and graphic styles with saturated colours and vibrant patterns. They also delight in visual and linguistic double entendres. The colourful painting Menu, in which two curvaceous, swimwear-clad women lounge on a beach towel printed with a restaurant menu, evokes the colloquial expression ‘looking good enough to eat,’ usually directed at women by men. The viewer thus assumes the position of a voyeur, objectifying the two friends as ‘pieces of meat’. Yet whereas one is faceless, the other knowingly glances back, typifying the strong and assertive protagonists that populate Kruglyanskaya’s compositions. Rather than falling into submission, they embrace their sexuality with confidence and humour; instead of losing agency, they turn the male gaze on its head.