DEPTH OF FIELD/PHOTO-BASED WORK
Photography had played an insignificant role in my art until very recent years. Of course I've always used photos as source material, sometimes even projecting an image and painting directly from it. But with the Depth of Field series the photographic image as photograph became an integral part of the spatial organization of the picture. Now I had at my command a particular kind of illusion possible only with the camera. I wasn't especially concerned with the quality of the photograph: it was one element among many and would be made to dance to a convincing conjunction of subject-matter and the formal arrangement. Flat shapes, veils, surrounds (what I call internal frames), digital manipulations, painterly backdrops, letters, partitioning -- all these things forced the photographic sections to adhere to the formal structure. In the Depth of Field pieces, the photo image is on occasion blurred, sometimes to the point of illegibility. The excitement came from the spatial play between overt frontal planes and an illusion of depth that is straining to make itself felt. Some works retain the full force of the photographic effect. f
Prices: Many of These are all small edition archival pigment prints on heavy stock paper (300 ib. rag). Price at original size, around 11x16, is $300. Melanie Invades China is a large collage of printed parts cut and pieced together and reworked with acrylic. The price for this piece is $5500
Mel with graffiti skull, archival pigment print, 2014, 30x20 |
Mike and Sophia, archival pigment print, acrylic, collage, 2019, 30x38
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I was A Highway Hussy, archival pigment print, 2014, 1/3,16x13
Melonie with Wood Grain, archival pigment print,
2014, 11x15 |
Melonie Invades China, a large archival pigment print altered by both acrylic and collage, the entire composition made up of sectioned printed pieces adhered to a board and hung in pseudo-Chinese fashion by a dowel, 2014
The above print caused a small scandal when it was exhibited the year of its execution. Some viewers saw Melonie's outfit as consisting of a sash of bacon and chunks of meat subbing for the dress itself. (Shades of Lady Gaga!) My protests that none of this was intended, only the result of incorporating the original Chinese painting! 
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Lillian As Studio Mermaid, archival pigment print, 1/3, 2014, 12x11.5