In my series Visual Art Icons, I reference visual arts icons from fine art, film, and photography from antiquity to 20th and 21st-century popular culture. In all the examples, the original image spoke to me, remaining in my subconscious, compelling me to pay homage, honor and photographically interpret or reinterpret the original work, while capturing the essence of the original and gaining an understanding of what makes the work iconic.
As a photographer it is a way for me to understand the light, composition, design, styling, mise-en-scène, symbolism, and color palette of the original without imposing my own idiosyncratic values onto it. Recreating a painting photographically, I change the medium and, in so doing, comment on it through a 21st-century point of view. Sometimes, that is enough of a shift in itself. In the process I examine the essence of the image, deconstruct it and discover what makes it iconic. Often I begin with the intention of recreating the image as authentically as possible. Sometimes, however, either through design or necessity, I end up imposing my own angle or sense of irony into the shot.
