How This Artist Paints Women the Way They Want to Be Seen

For this feature on the Women in Arts network, we sat down with figurative painter Tom Fima to talk about her journey from self-portraiture to her latest series, The Doll House. In this conversation, Tom shares why painting herself once felt like wearing a mask, how shifting her gaze toward the women around her opened a new sense of connection, and why the “female on female gaze” sits at the centre of her practice.

She speaks candidly about the tension between freedom and control in the dollhouse, how choosing the outfits and staging her models makes her question her own role in the game she is constructing. We learn how her friends and family, as sitters, bring both trust and vulnerability into the work, and how Impressionism continues to guide her fast, layered way of painting.

This interview invites us to consider the roles women are asked to play, the illusions of choice, and the discomfort and playfulness that coexist in Tom’s work. It also reveals how painting gives her back a sense of agency in a world where others often make the rules.

Tom Fima (1996) is a figurative painter, living and working in Haifa. She graduated from the realistic painting program at the Academy of Arts in Barcelona and holds a BA from Tel Aviv University and a curator diploma. Her paintings are mostly self-portraits based on her artistic influences from the Impressionist art movement, through which she searches for her identity and the behavioural traits that characterise her. Tom’s most recent series, “The Doll House”, explores the female-on-female gaze, the connection between women, and the artist’s perspective on the models. Tom models are the women surrounding her, her friends and family.

1. You mentioned that self-portraits once served as a way to escape or hide from reality. What shifted for you emotionally or mentally when you began painting the women around you instead?  

When I was deeply invested in painting myself over and over again, I began to see my face as a mask. At first, I was sure it would help me get to know myself better; it did, but after a while, I felt as if I was no longer painting myself, but rather a cartoon version of my true self. After shifting my focus to painting the women surrounding me, I began to feel my characters’ feelings and expressions again. It’s different, trying to express your own emotions to describe someone else’s just by looking at them.

When I’m creating a doll house and I’m the one playing and dressing and controlling the dolls, where does it put me?

Tom Fima

2.   In The Doll House, you explore the tension between playfulness and the discomfort of being seen as a ‘doll’. What moments during the painting process made this tension most visible to you?  

In my paintings, I often peer into intimate scenes. Sometimes during the painting process, I feel as if I’m intruding, which is part of the idea. But the most problematic part for me is choosing their outfits. When I’m creating a doll house and I’m the one playing, dressing, and controlling the dolls, where does it put me?

3. The idea of the ‘female on female gaze’ is central to your new series. How do your relationships with your models—who are also friends and family—shape what ends up on the canvas?   

My primary interest in the dollhouse series is the female-on-female gaze. The gaze I’m interested in is the one between the models to me, the painter. As all my painting characters are my friends and family, there is, of course, a sense of trust and truth in their looks. Still, at the same time, it’s accompanied by a small amount of shyness and the fear of looking straight at me, after all, they are not professional models, which is just the dissonance I was searching for.

4. You describe the dollhouse as both a space of freedom and a kind of illusion. What do you think this says about the roles women are expected to play, both in art and in life?    

The dollhouse is a place of freedom only if you’re not asking quotations. The freedom they have is an illusion; someone (me) is playing with them. They are not even responsible for what they are wearing; they are playing a part in someone else’s show.

At the beginning I was sure painting myself made me know myself better, but after a while I felt as if I’m not painting myself anymore so much as a cartoon character of myself.

Tom Fima

5. Impressionism plays a big role in your work, especially after visiting the d’Orsay. What is it about that movement that continues to speak to you today, and how do you see it fitting into the world you’re painting now?   

Impressionism was always my most significant influence when it comes to technique. I’m completely dazed by the idea that you can describe something so complex with a few little brush strokes in such an accurate way. For impressionists, everything is fast; you try to explain the moment. In my work, I’m not searching to spend a long period of time with my paintings; in fact, I’m usually working on seven or more paintings at the same time because I like the movement, I like living inside multiple different scenarios at the same time, maybe like visiting various rooms of my doll house constantly.

6. You’ve spoken about the feeling of being part of a game you didn’t create. How does painting help you process or push back against that sense of helplessness?  

Painting the dollhouse is allowing me to become the decision-maker, a role that I feel I have lost in many aspects of reality. In some paintings, I’m painting myself as one of the dolls also, as I know I’m still playing on both sides of the game. I think my dolls are angry, and maybe through the paintings, I let them speak out.

Tom Fima’s work brings us into a space where the gaze between women, the roles we are given, and the illusion of choice all come into play. Through The Doll’s House, she questions what it means to watch and to be watched, to play and to be played with. From her journey, we learn how shifting the subject of her paintings from herself to the women around her has opened a dialogue not just about connection, but about control, vulnerability, and the blurred lines between freedom and performance. Her paintings remind us that even in staged settings, real emotions, tensions, and questions surface.

To learn more about Tom Fima, visit the links below.