Paint! Dance! Act!

Approaching the end of my undergraduate studies, my relationship with my art and creating art has become one that lacks self-encouragement and satisfaction. However, I have come to terms with the fact that being creative is something that I can’t make the decision to just drop. It is a part of who I am, and this personal struggle is not something that is experienced alone. Bonjour Pierrot! is a fine-art portrait series which explores internal conflict and self-expression through the use of young female and femme-presenting creatives as models. 

Lighting and composition is intended to reference that of rococo and romanticism paintings in order to create a sense of unity and consistency across the series, as well as highlight the differences in each subject's personal style which blends a modern look with art history references. Prior to each one-on-one shoot, I asked each creative to contribute to and share a visual reference board to get a sense of their personal style for props, outfits and posing. This approach to characterizing each artist and their respective craft derives from the idea of performing for the camera and visually communicating the uniqueness of the subjects. 

An introspective melancholy conveyed by the models and overall imagery set the mood for the series. I was inspired by the character of Pierrot of Italian Commedia dell'arte who symbolises the simultaneous experiences of both suffering and living for art and the creative passion that drives you. The clown character is used as a conceptual metaphor to drive the project, focusing more on the relationship between art history and portraiture of clowns, as opposed to having it be a direct visual reference. 

In addition to using paintings as technical inspiration, I was interested in exploring the type of subjects that were classically given the “portrait-treatment”, and so I wanted to put women and femme-presenting people in the role of the powerful subject in order to contrast portrayals of, or the lack of, this demographic in art history.