Dave Alexander
Media: Ultrachrome Print on Matte Paper Size: 22 x 17 inches
Created: Aug 2019Artist's Statement:Secular MadonnasI have been focusing on the product scans that online auction sellers use to sell their vernacularphotographs. I look for prints that depict a woman and a child as the photographic foundation of theMadonna. I make a screenshot of the images I find. Of the hundreds of images collected, an image ischosen and I digitally paint over these screenshots using a drawing app on my mobile device. Thesedrawings are my chance to insert myself into the image and merge authorship of the new image that itbecomes. It is the moment I celebrate the original image itself with my attention. I move quickly tomaintain the free flow and spontaneity of my "reading" of the photograph that is in front of me. I respondto it, and hope to add to the image and not take away. It's a dance.The images I create with these screenshots are low resolution by the process in which I come to themand the qualities of the final output are based on the limitations of the original scan. I accept theselimitations. I print these using an Ultrachrome wide-format printer on enhanced matte paper. I return tothe original auction of the scans I have altered and purchase those original prints being sold in theauctions. These original prints are later scanned at much higher resolutions and archived for possiblefuture projects incorporating the same image. The original prints I purchased are left unaltered, I don'tdraw directly on the original photographs as it is not necessary to my work, they become a part of myresource library, or collection.

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