Dead Mannerist

These seven color photographs are a love letter to British portrait painting, particularly the work of the American expatriate painter John Singer Sargent. But where Sargent's work reveals his subjects' identities clearly, Dead Mannerist deranges them extravagantly. Each photograph is titled after one of Jack the Ripper's murder victims, and the the subjects' faces are obscured, creating a visual metaphor for the loss of identity. Presented as mural-sized color prints, the images explicitly mimic portrait painting but extend its methods.