Hommage

The series Hommage is a tribute to painting and particularly to the works of the great European Masters from the Renaissance onwards. Inspiration for each image comes from a single famous tableau such as The Birth of Venus by Botticelli or the Baigneuse de Valpinçon by Ingres; sometimes it comes from a popular theme such as the Madonna with Child or the Annunciation of the Virgin. My re-staged pictures are also informed and influenced by the “painting of modern life” quoted by Jeff Wall referencing Baudelaire. There is a surreal and humorous side in Hommage – particularly obvious in Madonna and Fish. Photographers have often been inspired by paintings, but my intention is to playfully allude to the well-known masterpieces rather than make exact copies of them. Each of my images contains numerous references to various paintings, an assortment of possibilities that come together and become real as a result of their “meeting” in front of the camera and of their “mixing” in the computer. The spectator is consequently invited to use his or her own personal “inventory” of pictorial references in order to decipher the photographs and make up his or her own stories.