Tag: Amanda Clyne

  • Artsy Lately: Amanda Clyne

    Artsy Lately: Amanda Clyne

    If you’ve been following Artsy Forager for a while, you may have noticed a few recurring themes in some of the work I write about– man’s relationship with nature, fashion industry and its psychology of influence, and art historical themes being a few.  When I first wrote about the work Toronto based artist Amanda Clyne , she was drawing reference from and making connections between historical portraiture and high fashion photography.  In her latest series, she continues the fasciation and the lines become even more blurred ( pun intended ).

    In this work, she begins with a photograph of a painting.  The photograph is then printed onto paper to which it doesn’t stick, creating a wet, workable surface.  She then “paints” the photograph, then once the residue dries, the surface is scanned and the painting then once again becomes a photograph of a painting.

    Gainsborough, Erased by Amanda Clyne Coello ( Catarina Micaela ), Erased Fragment by Amanda Clyne Van Dyck ( Henrietta Maria ), Erased by Amanda Clyne Coello(la Dama del Abanico), Erased by Amanda Clyne

    The resulting image is ghostly, with an x-ray-ish quality.  A nod to the illusory nature of the original portrait?  An attempt to find the real person beneath the layers of fashion and facade?  In style and palette, these are much softer than Clyne’s previous series.  Yet they are still asking the same questions and it seems we, as a society tend to continue to give the same answers.

    If you’d like to see more of Amanda Clyne‘s work, please visit her website.

    All images are via the artist’s website.

  • Fashion Fragmented: Amanda Clyne

    Fashion Fragmented: Amanda Clyne

    If you were around for artsyFASHIONWeek, you may already have an inkling of my interest in the relationship between fashion and art.  Lately, I’ve been thinking more and more about the influence of the fashion industry, what the clothes we wear say about our personalities and just the general psychology behind the fueling of the fashion industry and the choices that we make.  Toronto artist Amanda Clyne examines the influence of fashion upon our psyche in her paintings, in which she  “examines the image as a mirror of our desires”.

    Double Take by Amanda Clyne

    Amanda finds inspiration for her work in the pages of art history books and fashion magazines, seeing similarities between fashion photography of today and historical portraits of the elite.  They both carry with them the same fascination with beauty, wealth and transformation.. “images intended to fuel a spectacle of desire with feigned promises of intimacy and truth”. ( Amanda Clyne via her website )

    Looking Back by Amanda Clyne

    The artist fragments her subject, creating an elusive illusion, much like a hall of mirrors.  Our eyes deceive us, all isn’t as it would seem.  An important point to remember when gazing longingly at those $300 shoes that will make us beautiful and desirable.  ( Um, not that I’ve ever done that.. )

    Losing Face by Amanda Clyne

    The way she uses fragments of images to create the whole could be an interpretation of the illusionary aspects of fashion advertising and photography.  The images we see are the composition of designers, photographers, photo editors, art directors, etc. They represent an idealized portrayal of only one aspect of our being.

    Clyne_Looking Glass

    To see more of Amanda Clyne’s work, please visit her website and Facebook page.  If any of you Canadians out there are in Toronto, be sure to check out her latest show opening December 8th at p|m Gallery.

    Featured image is Mirror, Mirror ( diptych ), oil on canvas, 72×36.  All images are via the artist’s website.