Hand-coloured unique portrait of a conjoined siren, immobilised in marble, locked in a sisterly embrace. Inspired by 19th-century cabinet cards, medical illustration, sweet singing Scottish Selkies, Lyra and her sister defend each other's isolation.
Taken from The Sialia Marbles, a series of portraits containing ephemeral human sculptures taken between 2016-19. Together these works act as tales contained in a fictional sculpture hall, in direct reaction to Andre Malraux’s 1947 Le Musee Imaginaire (Museum Without Walls).
Original title: 'Lyra’s Lips are as White as Mine’, 2019
Hand-coloured Archival Pigment Print on Hahnemuhle Photorag Fine Art Paper (100% cotton)
40.5 x 30.5 cm
Unique
Series: The Sialia Marbles
Signed and dated on verso
"I’m not a sculptor, but I wanted to construct my own stories. Photographers have often used sculpture in order to challenge our idea of a “sculptural” body or object, by casting them in a two-dimensional light. I love playing with perception. A lot of my work is influenced by the nineteenth century—the pictorialist movement for instance. When photography was a new experiment, people would play around with perception tricks—Victorian paper theaters...
Category
2010s Romantic Sam Levin Art
MaterialsPhotographic Film, Watercolor, Photographic Paper, Archival Pigment