My painting shows nine intimidating characters. They look like a Viking Death Metal band, their hair is blonde but their skin is dark and they all have similar and very distinct facial features (the face of a particular bust from the Capitoline).

In order to throw the viewer off even more, I thought it would be apt to give the work the coquettish title Villette, a reference to the feminine novel by Charlotte Bronte. My aim here was to undermine the machismo of the men in the painting and to hint at more complex gender issues that are at work underneath the surface of all macho pretensions – Roman or otherwise.  

— Amir Chasson