Friday, October 03, 2008

Obscurity project


My "Obscurity lives on" project,
Projected finished-look.


Last winter, I played around with doing some small monochrome paintings (about 1 1/2 by 2 inches), using two blues, white and sometimes black, unblended. And for fun (and laziness), I chose to paint over portraits on pages of a 1940s encyclopedia. After doing a couple, I decided I liked them and toyed with the idea of displaying them together in some way.

Today I decided to scan them and using Photoshop do just that, and frame them, virtually.

It's not that they have any relationship or significance in my life -- I just like them. I like that they once were important enough to be in the printed encyclopedia, but most are now, at best, footnotes to history.

While fiddling with Photoshop, I meditated that it is a humbling lesson about fame. Even if a person achieves global fame in 2008 (Britney and Paris, Bono and Snoop, Sarah and Karl) they will be lucky if a hundred years from now their quaint, old-fashioned picture can be found in an encyclopedia.

For someone to paint over.

6 comments:

Lucky Dip Lisa said...

Humbling indeed. The fact that you like these is significance enough. I thought it was pop art to start with! I bet if you framed these 'for real' they really would sell!

Irene said...

Wow, Debi, wow!

Bev said...

They do look like pop art, and the famous silk screens and call to mind the famous Warhol quote of everyone having a minute of fame.

I must say, although you have painted over them, you have painted over them very nicely lol

Bobbie said...

You know, I really like these. I wasn't so fond of them when I saw them originally, but now as Irene says Wow!

Andi said...

These are quite brilliant.

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