Portrait with attribute: woman with BlackBerry

original oil painting: Woman with BlackBerry Bold 9000
Woman with BlackBerry Bold 9000, 60 x 40 cm, oil on canvas, ©2011 Julie Galante.

This is one of my new series of portraits with modern technology attributes. I’ve been fascinated by attributes in historical portraiture for a while now, and this body of work is my attempt to play with this traditional aspect of portraiture in a present-day context. I am using a very narrow range of gagets as attributes during this first series; the items are all highly personal and so modern that they place the portrait firmly in the present; most of the objects did not exist a year or two ago, and thus these paintings also could not have existed until now.

Once I had conceived of the project, I knew that one of the portraits would have to be of my friend Anita and her BlackBerry. Several years ago, hers was the first BlackBerry I used (it was an older model, equipped with one of those wacky nipple-like navigation nubs). We were on a train trying to find out the score from a World Cup soccer game, I think.

What’s the piece of technology you use the most?

2 thoughts on “Portrait with attribute: woman with BlackBerry”

  1. I really like it. My mom gave me a card (for our anniversary coming up), a card which has a Monet all over it. The Monet is called, like, The Church, and has a ghost of an antique Gothiquesque church in the fog behind some nature. Very cool work, Julie. I showed my wife this along with an Oktoberfest painting of yours. Ok, that’s enough from me.

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  2. I really like how the blue bar on the phone is a little wavy- a little artistic license on something so technical. But on the other hand, the strokes in the background are very square, purposeful, and somehow more technical/mechanical looking than other backgrounds I have seen you do. I like these interesting little touches! And this subject is quite beautiful 😉

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