THE BORROWED GAZE

KARIN HANSSEN

6pm FRIDAY 19th OCTOBER 2012 - SATURDAY 24th NOVEMBER 2012

CCAS Gorman

Around 1654, the Dutch genre painter Gerard ter Borch painted The Paternal Admonition. This is a figurative painting of an anonymous woman, her back towards us in a satin robe talking to another lady and man seated behind her. Between 1654 and 1750 it is a well-known fact that there were multiple, almost identical replications of this work circulating the art market. Not only was this woman portrayed repeatedly by ter Borch himself, but also by his contempo-raries and other later artists. Hanssen has taken this work as a starting point for ten of her own painted interpretations. In today’s society of technological and digital reproduction this appropriation acquires new meaning. Hanssen asks, is anything ever truly original? Or is everyone just reusing and recycling the work of someone else?

Image: Karin Hanssen,Variation 8, 2010-11, Oil on canvas, 55cm x 40cm