By E2 - Kleinveld & Julien
Located in New Orleans, LA
Inspired by Vincent Van Gogh's "Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear and Pipe", 1889
Edition 1 of 7 with 2 APs
"Ode to Van Gogh’s 'Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear and Pipe’” is a self-portrait of e2 artist E.Paul Julien as the tortured artist. This piece was inspired by Julien’s own struggles with mental health issues during isolation during pandemic lockdown, as he found himself in a place where he could relate to the fragile mindset that Van Gogh experienced through most of his life.
The artists say of their work...
"Everything Changes, the latest phase of our ongoing series In Empathy We Trust, presents odes to iconic images from the Modern and Contemporary art periods. Our artistic process during Everything Changes was heavily influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic and the inescapable upheaval brought about by this once-in-a-lifetime event. This major societal shift alongside ongoing social unrest compelled us to further explore the distorted realities permeating American culture and, consequently, veiling oppression of marginalized communities. With lockdown restrictions disrupting our usual process of gathering for photoshoots, we also began playing with new approaches for our work. As a result, our latest iteration marks a new technique exploration, with completely over-painting atop of select prints, adding an additional layer of distortion to an already-altered reality.
The title for this show takes inspiration from one of our favorite Frida Kahlo quotes: “Nothing is absolute. Everything changes, everything moves, everything revolves, everything flies and goes away.” The pandemic fostered a collective understanding of just how malleable and fragile our reality is. Our perceptions, our personal routines, and our culture as a whole – these realities are never guaranteed stasis, and the only way to move forward is to evolve, both as artists and individuals. The pieces in this show invite viewers to embrace the inevitability of change and the natural discomfort of re-examining their expectations of how a work of art – and by extension, a culture – should look.
The process of creating an e2 image has always involved intense collaboration, and the images here would not be possible without stellar teamwork. We would especially like to thank Cameron Wood for his extensive digital post-production and our wonderful models."
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As the photographic duo E2, New Orleans natives Elizabeth Kleinveld and Epaul Julien seek to remake images from art history to reflect their own experience of the contemporary world. Tackling icons from the great masters like Botticelli, Manet, Rembrandt, and Van Eyck, they recast instantly familiar images in a distinctly modern manner, breaking them free from centuries of historical context and placing them firmly in the present.
Kleinveld and Julien...
Category
21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Photography
MaterialsArchival Pigment
