In a quiet studio in North London, Milly Bampini sits with her paintbrush. With each stroke, the face you see in the mirror disappears into the painted surface. What starts as a self-portrait turns into something impossible to locate—where she stops and the painting begins. You don’t just look at one of her works; you fall into a puzzle that tricks your eyes and unsettles your certainty.
Milly Bampini isn’t just painting portraits. She folds herself into her canvases until art swallows the artist. You can’t tell if you’re seeing a painting, a person, or an illusion that refuses to settle. In an age ruled by filters and apps that alter reality with a swipe, Bampini sticks with oils and brushes. She does what software does, but she does it by hand, live, with her body in the frame. The result feels both ancient and new—familiar but strange.
Disappearing Into the Work
Bampini’s approach is simple to describe but challenging to execute. She paints herself into her surroundings—wallpaper, books, wooden tables, even photographs. Sit long enough in front of one of her pieces and you’ll ask yourself a basic question: Where exactly does she go?
Her critics call this the “seamless blend.” She doesn’t separate subject from background the way portrait artists usually do. Instead, she dissolves into the backdrop. Her eye turns into the glare of a book page. Her shoulder vanishes into a stripe of wallpaper. What you think you see one moment shifts the next.
To pull off these illusions, she calculates every detail: shadows, refractions, light angles, paint texture. She paints not just over canvas but over herself. Her skin becomes part of the work. The process forces you to look twice, sometimes three times, before your eyes stop lying to you.
Painting Without Hands
Even with her technical control, her story takes a surprising turn. At times, Bampini paints not with her hands, but with her mouth. Holding the brush between her teeth, she continues blending forms and textures with the same patience and precision. This part of her practice underlines her discipline and determination. For her, physical limits do not hinder creation. Instead, they deepen it. She treats the act of holding the brush in her mouth the same way she treats her illusions: a way to challenge expectation and prove that control over image depends on dedication, not convenience.
Her ability to paint this way reveals how much she values the physical connection with her art. Whether brush in hand or brush between teeth, nothing removes her from the immediacy of her medium.
Choosing Oil Over Screen
If you’re expecting Photoshop tricks, you’re wrong. Bampini doesn’t rely on screens. She insists on oils—thick, tactile, time-heavy. Where others reach for apps, she reaches for brushes.
The decision is not nostalgia; it’s control. Oil paints demand patience and commitment. They dry slowly. They layer thickly. Each stroke alters texture as much as color. That material weight matters. It’s not virtual. It’s there, on skin and surface, with the smell of turpentine and the sting of hours-long poses.
She doesn’t simulate light and shadow—she reproduces them with pigment. And because it’s hand-built, the illusion feels more convincing, less disposable. Digital manipulations disappear with a click. Bampini’s illusions last.
From Portraits to Illusions
She didn’t begin with illusions. Bampini trained in classical techniques. Her early work showed skill, but she was painting like many others—faces, still lifes, commissions. Over time, she realized the portraits were technically beautiful but conceptually safe. Something was missing.
So she began folding herself into the work. Instead of painting faces that stood apart from their settings, she blurred boundaries. Identity wasn’t framed anymore; identity dissolved. That choice carried her into new territory, beyond traditional portraiture.
Contemporary art thrives on bending categories. Bampini rejects the division between painting, photography, performance, and concept. She holds the brush, but her body becomes as much the subject as the canvas. Once you notice this, her work shifts from mere illusion to an open conversation about what art is and who exists inside it.
Planning the Illusion
Her finished works might look spontaneous, almost playful, but they begin with weeks of preparation. She starts with an object or surface—wood grain, patterned wallpaper, the corner of a room—that can absorb part of her body visually. But she doesn’t pick backdrops casually. Each object carries meaning. A book suggests memory. Wallpaper recalls domesticity. A table stands for stability.
After choosing, she studies. She takes photographs. She sketches sightlines. She calculates how light falls. She tracks perspective lines so her strokes match exactly. What looks natural in the final image requires hours of math and optical trial.
The technical stage sets her apart. Many artists can blend paint. Few think through angles like engineers while painting like classicists.
Shaping Reality with Patience
When the planning ends, the real work begins. She positions herself into the scene. Sometimes she crouches against shelves, other times she presses against a wall. Holding still is part of the discipline.
Then she paints directly on herself. Layer by layer, her face and body vanish into surface. Oil requires multiple coats, exact hues, and adjustments to match depth and reflection. She doesn’t rush. She revisits shadows. She tweaks highlights. A jawline either syncs seamlessly or ruins the trick. She doesn’t settle until it feels inevitable.
The most striking part of her work isn’t the final photograph. It’s realizing that every step happened live, with her body as part of the process, not added later.
Showing Illusions to the World
If Bampini lived in another century, you’d need to travel to a gallery and catch her work in person. Instead, you see it on your phone. Instagram has become her gallery.
The choice fits her art. Her illusions look like photographs at first, so when they pop up in a feed filled with ordinary images, they blend in—then ambush you. For a second you think you’re looking at a normal shot. Then you look again.
Social media feeds her art energy. She doesn’t wait months for critics to write. She gets immediate reactions. People comment about not grasping the trick until a second look. Some tell her what emotion they felt when they spotted her face dissolving into the background. This loop between maker and viewer turns her illusions interactive. You’re not just a spectator; you’re complicit.
Of course, this visibility spreads her work faster than any gallery could. Her images circulate across regions and languages, pulling in new audiences. Every repost introduces confusion and curiosity to someone else’s feed.
Why the Work Matters
At first glance, you marvel at the skill. But stay longer, and questions surface. What’s real here? Where is identity located? When she becomes the painting, who’s left—the maker, the subject, or both merged into something else?
These questions aren’t new. Artists have debated representation since antiquity. Surrealists asked them in the 20th century. Trompe-l’œil painters asked them centuries earlier. Bampini joins that line but makes one crucial change. She steps into the frame herself.
Her body becomes both subject and object. That shift feels urgent in a time where identity slides between physical and digital. Online, you already blend yourself into platforms and profiles. Bampini exposes that with paint. Watching her work, you can’t avoid asking yourself how you do the same each time you adapt to a screen, a crowd, or a role.
Art critic Eleanor Marsh explains it well: “Bampini’s work honors tradition while subverting it. An Old Master would recognize her brushwork, but her concepts are fully contemporary.” That balance—skill rooted in history with relevance to the present—makes her voice distinct.
Where She’s Headed
Her art is changing again. Early works buried her face in single backdrops. Recent pieces stretch wider. She builds full environments. She paints herself into entire rooms. Sometimes multiple figures appear, merging with each other.
Galleries and fairs now call her name. The recognition expands her options. She experiments with scale, complexity, and new mediums—possibly even moving images. Still, one element remains constant: she relies on oils, brushes, and direct interaction with her own body.
The consistency matters. Viewers trust that nothing here is digital trickery. That faith gives the illusions weight.
Why You Care
Here’s why her art matters to you. You live in a world where your eyes lie daily. Ads retouch faces. Apps filter skin smooth. Videos manipulate moments. You’re trained not to trust images.
Bampini makes you pause. She tricks you, but not to sell a product or to hide flaws. She tricks you so you ask: What do you actually see? How do you know what’s real?
Her work rewards you twice. First, the immediate surprise when your brain catches the illusion. Second, the slower realization that identity itself is always flexible, always merging with context.
The Illusion That Lasts
Milly Bampini gives you illusions, but not hollow ones. She makes them sticky—images you keep turning over in your head. The more you study them, the more you realize they’re less about tricks than about questions you can’t stop asking.
She paints in oils, with discipline passed down through centuries, but uses those strokes to show you something about the present: how easily you shift, disappear, and adapt in your everyday life.
She doesn’t just erase herself into backgrounds. She makes you notice how you might do the same.
Milly Bampini : Instagram | Youtube
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