In this series, I am photographing my subjects in the manner of some of my favorite paintings of modern art. My portraits inspired by Balthus, Mary Cassatt, or Andrew Wyeth, take on a painterly quality in terms of the elements borrowed, elements such as composition or gesture and pose. However, I hope to imbue new meaning into these appropriated forms by arranging new color and spatial relationships that emphasize the disconnect of contemporary life. I recreate a specific sitting but also create a new sense of the sitter's or sitters' psychology. In my double portraits, I seek to examine the nature of physical proximity between two people, especially between mothers and daughters and men and women in romantic relationships. I am particularly drawn to the physical disconnect these pairs reveal even when touching. I am also intrigued by how daughters often assert more physical confidence than their mothers and how women in romantic relationships do the same with their partners. In my portraits I aim to capture this tendency.
