This album cover involves a variety of different concepts mashed together, if you will, to create a piece that alludes to the idea of beauty playing a part in everything.
The doves resting upon the artist's hands could represent a symbol of freedom/peace or the artist's perception of something beautiful. Through research, it could also be a visual representation of the her name, dove being the meaning of the name Paloma in Spanish. The red roses - with the appearance of having been painted - connotate a halo-like essence that could portray her as an angel figure. It is subverted, however, with how an angel's clothing is perceived within the image as the artist wears next-to-nothing in a black lacy bra which proves to be a portrayal of a more scantily-clad woman. It is counteracted again by the tattoos dressing most of her body up in a flower design that appears tribal, the contrast of light skin with dark patterns indicating a sexual connotation. It is clear that this conflicted image is needed to be seen by the audience by having the artist directly in the middle of the medium shot as an important figure. The sensual theme continues on through a revisit to the past with her red, quiffed hair replicating that of a modernised version of a 1940s/1950s woman and could portray the idea of old and new coming together to create something beautiful.
Overall, the image is meant to replicate beauty and this is done in a seemingly controversial way with the artist bringing together all different types of culture and ideas that she, most likely, finds beautiful. Additionally, this could all be linked in with the title of the album, this idea of this portrayal of beautiful things not actually being the truth of something. This is backed up with the back cover and track listing where the reality of the setting of the image is shown.
The back cover of the album is somewhat significantly different to the front in terms of meaning and style which I believe was done purposefully to draw in the audience and make them think about its meaning.
This photo is very significant to the title and brings more attention towards the contrast between the two photographs. "Do you want the truth" is meant to symbolise the behind-the-scenes look for how the front cover was created but also hints at this idea of everything not being what it seems and things being hidden behind fakery and tricks. The additional lighting, set up, photographer and director - each representing normality to emphasise this - helps to further back up this idea of perhaps how easy it is to create something that is beautiful and pass it as the real deal. This has suddenly made the cover much more controversial as it openly challenges the media and their portrayal of beauty which is favourably known as something that is popular within the music industry in the present day. However, the text font and colour used stays the same and continues to present the front cover that helps sell the album to its target audience.
Overall, the artist clearly wants to cause a stir with the contrast as controversy is somewhat popular within the media at this present day and allows the artist to gain wider recognition for challenging social conventions and still portraying her different vision of beauty within it.
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