How "Lipstick on a Pig" Struck a Nerve With Thousands

Of all her pieces, Laura Sviridovaite returns to one in particular when asked which carries the most story. It began as an assignment and ended as the most personal thing she has made.

"'Lipstick on a Pig' was created for my final college exam, where the theme was 'Incongruous,'" she says. "The idiom reminded me of feeling out of place as a plus-size girl growing up. The figure isn't a self-portrait, but a representation of the conflict between trying to fit society's expectations of femininity and rejecting them. It's the piece that feels the most personal to me."

“Thousands of women shared their own experiences in the comments, and some even said it made them cry.”

Like many artists, she moves between extremes of productivity and exhaustion. "I'm constantly alternating between having about a hundred ideas at once and complete creative burnout," she says. "When that happens, I have to remind myself that the ideas will still be there when I'm ready to come back to them. Until then, they all live in a very, very long Notes app list."

The response to the work has been its own reward. "Seeing people connect with my work is one of the most rewarding parts of creating. When Lipstick on a Pig went viral on TikTok, thousands of women shared their own experiences in the comments, and some even said it made them cry," she says. "Moments like that remind me why I make art, and the support I receive encourages me to keep pursuing creativity, even in a time when AI has made many artists uncertain about the future."