Theme: Death & Cult of Celebrity - Inspired by Andy Warhol

The following work was part of an A2 level study on Andy Warhol.  I chose to look at his theme of Death and Cult of Celebrity, which was heavily influenced on his Marilyn Monroe prints.  My pieces look at life contrasted with death, and the effects of the media, headlines and the stress of celebrity life.

Mortality of Marilyn 1
 (Approx. 36x48)

This piece was done using acrylic paints in different stages.  First I painted a black and white layer to form the shape of Marilyn and to act as a 'skeleton' for the rest of the painting.  The next layer was colour. I edited a photo of Marilyn on Photoshop to create a similar pop art effect to Warhol, which I then painted on top of the black and white layer.  Finally, I painted thick black lines to resemble the mortality of Marilyn, which was inspired by this  Oswaldo Guayasamín image.  In this piece I wanted to represent what Andy Warhol did in his theme of Cult of Celebrity and Death.  I think this painting represents that no matter how rich and beautiful Marilyn's life appeared, there was still a dark side that was constructed in her.

Mortality of Marilyn 2 
(approx 20x24)


Similar to the above, this painting was also done using acrylic paint.  Here I painted one of the famous Marilyn Monroe prints by Warhol, and scraped the paint vertically to make Marilyn appear aged.  I think this painting is attractive to look at, yet also appears quite dark.  Again, this contrasts life with death and is an effective painting at illustrating the theme Death & Cult of celebrity.

Mortality of Marilyn 1 Photoshop Prints

These are 6 A4 Photoshop prints of my first painting.  I took a photo of the painting and simply edited the hue and saturation of the painting to create a similar style to Warhol's Marilyn prints.

The piece in action!

Death & Celebrity


Here, I created a video of various Marilyn Monroe images and projected them onto the body of an emaciated woman which was made out of mod rock.  The concept here was to show how the media had projected a stressful, public life on a fragile woman.  I think this piece stresses the effects of the media, which for Marilyn led to her death.

Cult of Celebrity

This piece was a support piece for the one above.  I wanted to play on the definition of cult of celebrity and created a triptych style sculpture.  This shows how the public worship almost religiously corrupted stars.  This work was heavily influenced by Alberto Giacometti and Oswaldo Guayasamín.