Bill Armstrong

The Renaissance Portraits series consists of blurred photographs created by re-photographing reproductions of 15th- and 16th-century paintings. These images act as a metaphor for the passage of time, revealing a version of the Renaissance which could not have existed at the time. By appropriating and obscuring the images and forms from Renaissance masterpieces, Armstrong detaches the figures from their rich narrative contexts and isolates them. Presented in a distinctly contemporary manner, with vibrant colours and blocked backgrounds, these become secular, and modern. While posed in their original gesture, the figures are blurred and featureless, allowing modern audiences to project onto and relate to figures in a contemporary manner, devoid of their original renaissance context. These dreamlike, haunting images are both familiar and strange. They examine the nature of perception, as the viewer’s eye continually attempts to resolve the blur but fails to do so. In revisiting the light, colour, and ideals of the Renaissance, Armstrong transforms these portraits into archetypes for the human condition, offering a fresh way to experience this historical genre.