M2 CP / Photomontage Concepts & Sketches

 https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.125646.html
The Piazza San Marco, 1874. Rudolf Von Alt.

Absurdity is a common motif in my art and in my personality. The first idea I had while reading about this project was to play on the classic tourist photography trope of using tricks of perspective to appear large in relativity to world landmarks. I wanted to defeat the purpose of the gimmick by simply editing a photo of myself over a piece of architecture. When I spotted a painting of a Venetian public square called the Piazza San Marco, I came up with the idea to pose myself as a misinformed tourist who mixed up the Piazza with the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and tried to pose as if she were trying to hold up a building that is standing perfectly upright. While sketching, I thought it might also be comical to edit myself to scale with the civilians in the painting rather than looking like a giant, but still pose as if I were holding up the building.

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https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.56662.html

Baby (Cradle), 1917/1918. Gustav Klimt.

I was very excited to stumble upon this painting of a baby bundled up in a blanket of several different fabrics and patterns, because I wanted quilts to be a motif on my blog and in my work this semester. They're essential to my identity as a seamstress, and I also think you can fit many different facets of a person's character and interests by dedicating a square of the quilt to each. My idea was to edit some of my interests and ideals onto individual squares of the quilt. I think it would be an interesting challenge to use only photographs on my phone's camera roll. Also, while looking at this sketch next to my others, I had the idea to edit my adult head of hair onto the baby. I think it would look a bit ridiculous, but ridiculousness is also an essential trait of my identity.

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https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.13.html

Madonna and Child with Donor, 1325/1330. Lippo Memmi.

I was initially avoiding using any of the Medieval-era panels of the Madonna and Child, because it felt a little too cliché. However, I think the halos from the period of misguided understandings of perspective mostly feels cliché to me because they are a common trend in many of my projects, and that in itself made it a good candidate for my self-portrait. While working on the sketches, I thought an interesting way to remix this would be to edit the faces of the painting onto a photograph of my mother and myself, as opposed to editing our faces onto the painting. I purposely tried to find the painting with the facial expressions that looked the least glamorous. I had the thought of editing Professor Schutze's face onto the donor, as she is the woman who "commissioned" this project, but SUNY Empire does not have staff and faculty portraits on their website.