My art-practice explores portraiture as a multi-disciplinary field of story-telling.  This involves film, photograph, paint, the written word and the art of process, appropriation and participation. 

My current work is in two parts - the first involves the salvaging of political portraiture and it's defacement in the wake of revolution (and a study of a specific fragment of a Gaddafi image) and the collection and assembling of related sound recordings.  The second part is a visual recreation of the networked individual, using 52 images retrieved from the internet which are then painted over - ultimately to form a pack of networked playing cards.

In my research I am exploring what visual representations might fill the void of the removed self-styled icons in a treatment that relates to defacement, but also explores the rise in influence of the individual - empowered by new technological networks and seen through a media eye.

Previous works includes painted portraits of political figures and war journalists; a participatory essay entitled "throng"; a photographic portrait of Sri Lanka's children; a curatorial piece using donated Facebook profile pictures of people named Mary, Miriam and Maryam; a participatory portrait of a rock band; and a body of work connecting the cities of Cambridge and Karachi in Pakistan using primarily film, but also other mediums.  Paintings have been exhibited in the UK, Europe and Asia.

My core research interests are the perceptions of events, nations, and places via the media, and exploring the world "behind the camera" and the rise in influence of the individual. 

Caroline Jaine