Dorian in Eternal Midlife Crisis
(4 images)
This is a fixed vantage point virtual reality piece made in a 3D software called Blender and embedded in a wall and engulfed by thick black curtains. It serves as a peephole into a small blank room lit only by a swaying gas lamp where Oscar Wilde’s infamous fictional character Dorian Gray, known for trading his mortality with a portrait of himself, slowly and pathetically stabs at the painting, which, unmarred by the attempts, envelops the knife and ripples in response. I was interested in preserving the moment where mortality transfers from the painting back to the human it depicts. The audio heard faintly from within the room is a song called “Goodbye Little Yellow Bird” sung by the Angela Lansbury in the 1945 American film adaptation of the novel. The original portrait I sampled for this piece was also commissioned for the 1945 film and painted by Ivan Albright.