So how did I come up with the painted Instagram from the past sometime in the fall 2016? Well it’s been a long process and the merging of a few thoughts.
The first one was the realization that Instagram could become a medium for art instead of being only a media. Take a look at some profiles of bloggers, visual artists and see to what extent these profiles are art in themselves. Since I often heard the comment that my paintings “looked like photos”, I thought well I should play the game and create them as Instagram posts!
The second thought was that artists do what they do, because of who they are of course, but also thanks to their connections. I love to read about art history, but mostly I love to learn about the personal stories of artists, how they were connected with other artists, art dealers, writers, their lovers etc. Warhol painted a can of soup because Lichtenstein “stole” the subject of comics, because Muriel Latow suggested he do so and because Duchamp created his Fountain in 1917. Velasquez, but also Braque and Matisse and African sculptors influenced Picasso and participated in making him who he was. In a nutshell, art history is a continuum.
All these stories renew my interest in these artworks that I’ve seen so many times. I thought that some others could be interested in these stories too. So I merged these thoughts and created these Instagram posts from the past, as an opportunity to share the stories behind the art and the connections between the people. When the idea was clearer, I checked that nobody had done the same thing before and to my knowledge it’s not the case. Because yes, I wanted to create something new, a concept that was my own.
This project is probably the most personal project I’ve ever worked on. It combines my interest in art history and painting. It’s also thanks to this series that I’ve been awarded an Artist Residency at the ESKFF in Mana Contemporary in 2017 and that I’ve met the curators and galleries who now represent my work.
I want to thank my husband and my friends, the artists Allan Gorman and Mary Beth McAllister, who were the first to see it and who encouraged me to develop it.