James Welling Julia Mamaea - 187D

Julia Mamaea was a cultured Roman noblewoman (180-235 CE) and mother of the emperor Severus Alexander. During a visit to a New York museum, James Welling discovered a partially destroyed bust of Julia Mamaea that stood out from the surrounding figures for its naturalistic depiction of the subject. Welling took a digital photograph of the sculpture, from which he then created a series of handmade photographs.
Made with aniline dyes and gelatin of various kinds, the resulting images transform the extraordinary naturalism of the sculpture, giving rise to a somewhat altered and sometimes radically different expression on Julia's face. Somewhere between representation and abstraction, the work both uses and undermines photography's capacity for mimesis.