Photorealism
- Kennedy Motorcade
- Sisters of the Immaculate Conception
- Farb Family Portrait
- Macarena of Miracles
- Crayola
- Self-Portrait
- Buddha
- World War II
- Marilyn
- We Are All Light and Energy
Marilyn (Vanitas). 1977
Oil over acrylic on canvas, 96x96" - Collection of the artist
| Marilyn is perhpas Flack's most famous photorealism painting.
To Flack, Marilyn Monroe represented a deep pain and a deep beauty. She
affected both men and women equally, and that is why Flack considers this
painting androgynous. The test included in this work, as well as the impetus
for its creation, is from Maurice Zolotrow's Marilyn Monroe (Flack
86).
This work shows Marilyn in transition: She has a touch of softness and innocence, but a trace of pain in her brow that is not present in the photograph. On the left is a distorted reflection. The mirror shows Marilyn as ghostlike and threatened by lipsticks as weapons destroying the living goddess. A picture of Flack and her brother is in the middle showing Flack's emotional attachment to the subject and time. This style also combines still-life and portraiture in one work (Flack 85-86). It has been suggected that Marilyn is also a comment on the controlling and objectifying male gaze. Flack insinuates that this may have played a role in Marilyn's downfall. Marilyn Monroe sits like an icon, surrounded by something that almost looks like an altar with candles. This has been described as an iconic image for a secularized age showing a universal symbols of human survival (Gouma-Peterson 19). The contrast of beauty with death is apparent in this work. There is at once a sense of opulence and reminders of death: Marilyn has a broad, happy smile next to cut fruit, drying out, as well as the symbols of time (Heller 204). The purple fabric near the top may symbolize the regency society ascribed to Marilyn Monroe. There are three examples of passing time: an hourglass, a watch, and a calendar, perhspas included to symbolize time as it played a role in Marilyn's passing. The dripping paintbrush might symbolize either blood or the view of Marilyn as an unfinished work of art. |
Below:
Marilyn (detail, left)
Photograph of Marilyn Monroe by Andre de Dienes used
by Flack (right)