Artist Analysis: Cindy Sherman

Untitled #424
Clowns collection

This is a self-portrait of Cindy Sherman, like all of her photographs but she is in clown makeup, clearly. Sherman states that she feels like clowns have an "underlying sense of sadness when they are trying to cheer people up." I feel like she was trying to show the person underneath the clown facade, the funniest people are always the most miserable inside. All of her photos are self-portraits. She likes to play around with different personas and be completely different people in the photographs. For me personally, it is a clown and clowns are supposed to be happy but I feel sad when I look at this photo. So in that sense, Sherman really got the emotion she was trying to portray. I think it shows that no matter how much you try to hide what you're really feeling inside that it will always shine through.

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Sorry it's so tiny!

Artist Analysis: Morimura Yasumasa

Self-Portrait – After Marilyn Monroe, 1996

Gelatin-silver print

Morimura Yasumasa is a Japanese artist. He took famous pictures and inserted himself in a reconstruction of them by putting on costumes, wigs and makeup. He posed as iconic movies stars and he was interested in the idea of fame. In this case he is posing as Marilyn Monroe. He said that all people had the desire to transform into other people. He liked to draw people in with the familiarity of the people he captured. I think that this image is really beautiful in it's construction. I'm not sure if this was his hope but it shows that really anyone can be made to look beautiful with the right settings and props. Obviously, he doesn't look like Marilyn Monroe but you know automatically who he is portraying.