The Cleveland Museum of Art
Collection Online as of April 18, 2024
Constructivist Portrait
1983
(American, b. 1952)
Overall: 45.7 x 51.5 cm (18 x 20 1/4 in.); Mounted: 50.8 x 61 cm (20 x 24 in.)
Gift of Dorothy Handelman 2003.309
©Ellen Carey
Location: not on view
Description
During the past two decades, Carey has consistently expanded the expressive and formal expectations of photography beyond its ability to mimic reality, relying on color and abstraction to carry her symbolism. In this early self-portrait, she added a collaged eye to the negative, which was then rephotographed, printed in high contrast, and painted with vivid hues. She relied on optical distortion to obscure and flatten the representational image, which has a psychedelic, geometrical quality that seems inspired by Piet Mondrian’s colors and forms and Man Ray’s Surrealist juxtapositions.- Sims, Lowery Stokes. The persistence of geometry: form, content, and culture in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2006. no. 123, p. 123, color repr. cover and p. 115.
- Beyond Truth: Photography after the Shutter. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 10-May 26, 2019).The Persistence of Geometry: Form, Content and Culture in the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland (MOCA), Cleveland, OH (June 9-August 20, 2006).
- {{cite web|title=Constructivist Portrait|url=false|author=Ellen Carey|year=1983|access-date=18 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}
Source URL:
https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2003.309