In 2006 I began a series: “Self Portraits as Dead Iconic Patriarchal Painters” to deal with the contradictory emotions involved with looking within the cannon of art history as an artist working today. As a female artist using photography my desire to join the exclusive group of male painters, whose work I love and identify with, shall never be fulfilled. Artists such as the Guerrilla Girls informed this series and their famous billboards revealing inequalities in major art collections. There is humour in these portraits, gently poking fun at these perceived patriarchs, for example in the Reynolds portrait where he holds a paintbrush I hold the shutter release so that the cable droops in a phallic manner. In retrospect this series reflected a feminist standpoint that had previously been veiled and brought together a conceptual wrangling between painting and photography that concerns status and preconceptions.
Each photograph is the same dimensions as the original painting.