Corinne Whitaker
Hot Cross Chicken Pox, 2019
Digital Painting on Mirror
36” x 36”
Artist Statement
This piece is about identity, finding out who you are in a world of chaos and confusion. The viewer is encouraged to take selfies in front of the pieces, perhaps more than one, as they move past the image. The viewer than becomes a co-creator of the new artwork, impacting the art and creating something that did not exist before.For attorneys, this process questions the meaning of copyright and identity: who owns the newly-created image? Do artists relinquish copyrights when others alter their work? Who are you, when you insert yourself into an artwork? What do originals and copies mean in a world of multiples? How does the law address these issues?This image uses a new digital iconography that was not developed until NASA brought back images from the moon in the 1970's. Where once we thought of ourselves as the center of the universe, master of all we surveyed, those picture from outer space revealed us to be mere specks in a vast cosmos. Renaissance perspective was forever changed. As a result, we now see ourselves in a different way. How will the law adapt to this new vision. As a pioneering inventor of this new digital language, do I own my visual language, or do the software makers, the hardware manufacturers? Can the maker of Picasso's brushes claim any rights to his paintings?