Self Portrait as Left Eye is a painting by Devan Shimoyama in which Shimoyama portrays himself dressed in drag as Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes, a member of the R&B group TLC who died tragically in a car crash at age 30. The hair style Shimoyama adopts in this painting comes from the music video for TLC’s 1999 smash #1 single No Scrubs.

This painting is part of a series of self portraits in drag that Shimoyama painted for his solo exhibition A Counterfeit Gift Wrapped in Fire. Each work in the series portrays the artist donning the hairstyle of a beloved musician who influenced his own personal and professional evolution. In addition to Left Eye, the series also pays homage to Ronnie Spector, Aaliyah, Coi Leray, and Patti LaBelle.

The thematic framework of A Counterfeit Gift Wrapped in Fire had to do with transformation, and the difference between superficial and real change. In addition to paintings of himself in drag, the exhibition featured a series of paintings based on tarot cards and a series grounded in the transformation sequences from comics genres such as manga, among other works.

“We have this desire to present outwardly as contained and keeping it together,” Shimoyama says. “We think it’s a gift to say, ‘I’m fine.’ There’s a mimicry of something really desired, but it’s fake. There’s a danger to that kind of thing.”