Portfolio Category - Portrait Awards 2014

The Mona Lisas Perhaps the most renowned portrait in the world is the Mona Lisa. We never tire of her. She remains the Louvre’s most popular resident. Walking by the crowds one day, I began wondering about her neighbors—the other great masterworks who’ve been sharing living quarters with her for more than 200 years. It has long been observed that people who live together over long periods of time begin to resemble one another. There are many theories: shared environments, initial similarities, comfort in likeness. And too the mind plays tricks, as did mine when I got back to my studio and began blending her image with the other shots I took that day; first with the mistress of a monarch, then the Dutch musician, a Parisian socialite, and so on. She begins to look like them, and they like her. But since it is she who is most familiar to us, it almost feels as if we’re finally meeting her family—The Mona Lisas.