Cindy Sherman and Catherine Opie Unveil a Joint Project of Wearable Art
The two artists unveiled a new line of shell cameos made into rings, earrings, cufflinks, and pendan
Professor Catherine Opie’s work has been exhibited extensively throughout the United States, Europe, and Japan. Her masterful portraiture and landscape photography studies the relationships between mainstream and infrequent society, with a large emphasis on sexual identity. Last week, during the opening of the 2019 Venice Biennale, artists Cindy Sherman and Catherine Opie unveiled their collaborative project: a series of contemporary cameos carved from shells, based on their personal photographs.
"Last week, during the opening of the 2019 Venice Biennale, artists Cindy Sherman and Catherine Opie unveiled their collaborative project: a series of contemporary cameos carved from shells, based on their personal photographs. The artists teamed-up with jewelry designer Liz Swig from Liz Works on a line of nine pieces including rings, earrings, cufflinks, and pendants. The series is simply titled “Cameo.”
Catherine Opie, “Mary” earrings. Created from Opie's photograph of UCLA Professor Emerita, Mary Kelly. Opie’s cameos represent themes of motherhood, family, and identity. “I’ve always been interested in the relationship to object making even within the photographic medium,” Opie says in the project’s press release. “A cameo is something that can be worn every day that doesn’t hang on a wall — the piece becomes more sculptural than a photograph with texture and dimension.”
“The artworks I selected are very personal to me and my connection to my family,” Opie added. “In the process of making the photographs into three-dimensional objects, I thought of images that would be visually compelling, but also iconic works of mine as an artist.”
Cameos date back to Ancient Greece, when portraits of ancient gods were carved into agate. In Ancient Rome, shell cameos featured portraits of emperors.
Opie and Sherman’s works are hand-carved in Italy in small editions under the supervision of Gino Di Luca, a third-generation cameo maker in Torre del Greco, a town known for its production of shell cameos."— Hakim Bishara, May 20, 2019
This post is an excerpt. Read the full article on the Hyperallergic website.
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