An "after image" is an impression of a vivid image retained by the eye after the stimulus has ceased. For her fifth book of portraits, Amy Arbus has borrowed ideas from iconic modernist paintings by artists including Picasso, Cezanne, Munch, Schiele, and Modigliani, and transferred their visceral energy and psychological intensity to live staged scenes to be photographed. In order to replicate the powerful effects of the original paintings, she painted costumes, props, and the models themselves. What has materialized is a series of hybrid images that challenges the thin line between painting and art photography. Chiaroscuro lighting and lush colours produce dark trompe l'oeil portraits in which the live models appear to be trying to escape the confines of the two-dimensional world that holds them captive. AUTHOR: Amy Arbus has had twenty-two solo exhibitions worldwide, and her photographs are featured in the permanent collections of The National Theater in Norway, The New York Public Library, and The Museum of Modern Art in New York. SELLING POINTS: ?Twenty-four photos pay homage to paintings by ten modern masters ?These "hybrid" portraits blur the line between painting and art photography ?Modern masterpieces reinvigorated through this photographer's vision 24 colour photographs
