Anamorphicon, 2022

This collection references anamorphic Tudor era portraiture while drawing
parallels to the multi-dimensional works of Italian futurist Bruno Munari,
specifically, his expressions in kinetic art, movement and visual distortion.

Artists’ experimentation with optics during the Renaissance advanced through perspective techniques that gave a distorted image of the subject represented in a picture when seen from specific vantage points. Examining anamorphic works by Tudor court painters such as Hans Holbein provided a reference point for silhouette and for exploring the graphic potential of visual distortion.

In 1963, along with the second wave of Italian futurists, Bruno Munari experimented with projecting light through plastic and in 1964 developed a
distinct style of printmaking using a Xerox machine wherein he obtained his
prints by moving the image during the five second period that it took for the
light to cross the screen. These “xerographs” included abstract geometric shapes, lettering, textured and moiré effects. He continued to make xerographs into the 1980s and started developing visual experimentations that worked on direct projection of polarized light.

In 1970 Munari published his visual case studies on shapes: Circle, Square,
and, a decade later, Triangle in which he hypothesized that our natural environment may be simplified into these fundamental geometries. Employing
Munari’s visual case studies I sought to develop analog lenticular prints that
work on a similar fundamental grid structure of line and shape, utilising layering and transparency, which are intrinsic to the concept. I juxtapose and subvert common elements of Tudor era portraiture, such as the Tudor rose, as well as traditional elements of garment construction such as slashing and pinking, representing them as two-dimensional prints in movement.

Through these analog lenticular print developments I am interested in examining the “duration of an image”. This collection thus explores the idea of the “wardrobe” as a kinetic medium to showcase the coexistence of organic and mechanical motion.