User:Ellapearcy/Kathleen Gilje

Portraits

Gilje created a number of portraits over the years. She either added to an existing portrait to give the painting further meaning, or painted someone she knew in the style of a well known portrait. Gilje would take a portrait like La Donna Velata by Raphael and created La Donna Velata, Restored which depicts the woman, presumed to be Raphael's mistress Margherita Luit, with a black eye. Gilje's restored version is meant to comment on how abuse against women is a timeless act. In other portraits, Gilje's restored versions add tattoos to the women being painted. Ginevra de' Benci, Restored and Lady with Ermine, Restored both depict the women with added neck tattoos as well as includes lines of poetry from the sitter in the corner of the painting. Gilje was also known to paint fellow artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat in her portrait Basquiat as Velázquez’s Portrait of Juan de Pareja based off of the portrait artist Juan de Pareja did of himself.

Installations

Portrait of the Dwarf Diego De Acedo, called El Primo, Restored

Portrait of the Dwarf Diego De Acedo, called El Primo, Restored is a restoration Gilje did that was oil on linen and 43” x 32 ¾” done in 2004. The original painting is the artist Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velázquez titled The Jester Don Diego de Acedo. The painting is also called El Primo because of the respect the king had for Don Diego and his intellect. To show this Velázquez painted the dwarf surrounded by books and writing materials. In Gilje's restoration, she paints Don Diego nude and paired the piece with a sculpture of Don Diego hands sitting atop the book he holds in the painting. The sculpture is made out of plaster and ceramic, and is inspired by the imagery Velázquez uses in the original.

Woman with a Parrot, Restored

Woman with a Parrot, Restored was completed in 2001 and is Gilje's interpretation of Gustave Courbet’s Woman with a Parrot. The painting and x-ray that accompanies it explores the meaning behind the strange emptiness in the background of the Courbet's work. With Gilje's work, she looks at the possibility of a nude man looming over the woman as she look as the bird. The x-ray shows this man watching over the woman in the background of the painting, commenting on the spectatorship men have when they watch women.

Susanna and the Elders, Restored

Gilje has done several works based off of the paintings of Artemisia Gentileschi. In Susanna and the Elders, Restored, Gilje takes Gentileschi's painting titled Susanna and the Elders and pairs the painting with an x-ray showing Susanna fighting her onlookers with a knife. The work is meant to comment on the assault that both Susanna and Artemisia Gentileschi experienced in their life times, comparing Susanna denying the advances of two elders to Gentileschi being raped at 19 by her art teacher Agostino Tassi. Gilje's work is meant to show how women are not helpless to their aggressor, and wish to fight back in whatever ways they are able to.