I back working on the female form and the photo I’m basing this painting on has an interesting history in itself. It is allegedly a fake of a minor Hollywood celebrity’s head photoshoped onto the body of a model posing. Now by the standard of this type of photographs on the internet this is very well done and the resultant photograph really isn’t anything to be upset about – apart from the rather large problem of the humiliation that the woman involved in this may well feel.

Leaving aside the gender politics of this photograph the question arises of likeness. Just exactly what does that mean in this case? Of course what does a likeness mean in any painting? For me I assume that if the artist is trying to make a portrait of someone then it is beholden on the artist to ensure that the finished article does have some resemblance to the person. This is loaded with Phd’s worth of value judgments – none of which I intend to explore here. Instead, I’m just going to apply that rule at face value to this painting but of course a likeness of who? The photoshoped celebrity face or the unsuspecting model underneath? Well actually neither. For a start I don’t want contribute to the humiliation of the woman in question so I’m deliberately changing the face and as far as the body is concerned I’m trying to explore the relationship of tones to one another so am not actually looking to slavishly copy the body either. So it will make for an interesting exercise…I think?

Simon Marchini
Web: http://WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk