ScholarWorks

Title

Mona Lisa

Creator

Raeh Imogene Stark, Boise State UniversityFollow

Creation Date

2018

Preview

Medium

digital print

Description

Dimensions: 14 x 11 inches

Artist Statement

In this photographic series I am using photography as a direct reference to some of the famous paintings of Art History. Specifically, I have chosen the Mona Lisa, The Ghent Altarpiece, 17^th Century Dutch still life’s, Frida Kahlo and Picasso.

A very well known classical painting, the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci, created in 1503 shows a woman who is considered beautiful. Changing the subject to Barbie reflects what society in 2018 has deemed picturesque.

We also have Jan Van Eyck’s The Ghent Altarpiece, which depicts biblical characters in a 12-piece panel. I have chosen to replicate 3 panels representing God, the Virgin Mary and St. John the Baptist. In the original masterpiece each person is holding a religious symbol. In my recreation my subjects are pictured holding a piece of technology, which changes the original meaning of the paintings from one of religious worship to society’s current worship of technology.

Using photography is the equivalent of a painter capturing someone’s portrait in the late centuries. The use of photography has greatly changed over time and because of this we can capture history. For, this work I wanted to keep the poses as similar as possible to the original artwork. To achieve this I used studio lighting and in one of them I used a flash for illumination. When in the studio I used a green screen so the desired background could be added to best fit the meaning behind each painting. All the prints are done on luster because I felt that glossy is too shiny to represent the look of canvas and matte is too flat to bring life into the pictures. As opposed to using new frames I choose to use salvaged frames to better represent the original artwork.

Rights

© Raeh Imogene Stark, 2018.