PORTFOLIO > HISTORY OF THE IDEA OF COPYING: JUAN SANCHEZ COTAN

While enrolled at the School Of The Art Institute Of Chicago I took a class entitled "The History Of The Idea Of Copying." Each student chose a work from the Institute’s museum collection to copy.

I chose the oil painting “Still Life With Game Fowl” c. 1603 by Juan Sanchez Cotan. I spent the entire school semester reproducing it. The second requirement for the class was to replicate the same work in the students’ chosen medium, which for me was photography.

Because of the difficulty in preserving dead birds I choose another of Cotans’ still life’s. Appropriating his “Quince, Cabbage, Melon And Cucumber” c. 1600, my photographs document the various fruits and vegetables as they are eaten, i.e. a still life in the process of being consumed.