

Michael Mapes's Dutch Masters series recreates 17th century paintings as blown-mosaics composed of "photographic prints, insect pins, pinning foam, gelatin capsules, glass vials, optomotrist lens, paint samples, modeling clay, dried botanical matter, fabric, magnifying box, plastic specimen bags, cotton thread" (what a list!).

His other work applies similar techniques to other subjects. Man, I love this stuff.

The samples are part of my most recent series of work examining Dutch Master Portraiture. In this work, I deconstruct the original subject, in both a figurative and literal sense by dissecting photos of a painting and considering ways in which the parts might serve to inspire new parts within the reconstruction to suggest unique and complex meanings. I've done these works with the use of a visual metaphor suggesting a pseudoscientific method specifically working with materials and processes signifying entomological, biological and forensic science.

In the Dutch Master Portraiture series the collection is largely composed of deconstructed photos of actual paintings, paintings which served to represent human subjects.