The Mona Lisa Project
Portrait of an Artist Rino Pizzi
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Arts Eclectic
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Photographer Rino Pizzi’s latest endeavor is a reexamination of Leonardo’s Mona Lisa. Arguably the most famous painting in history, Mona Lisa has been studied, contemplated, and debated about so much over the centuries that Pizzi feels it’s sometimes considered more of a subject of discussion than an actual painting. In an effort to look at the artwork with fresh eyes, he asked sixteen female artists to sit for him in the style of Mona Lisa‘s famous subject. The artists themselves (Connie Arismendi, Ellen Berman, Valérie Chaussonnet, Judy Jensen, Faith Gay, Germaine Keller, Emily Little, Beili Liu, Beverly Penn, Margo Sawyer, Nancy Scanlan, Julie Speed, Jana Swec, Liz Ward, Sally Weber, and Sydney Yeager) then created Mona Lisa-inspired works based on the photos.
In addition to taking a peek at the Mona Lisa Project you can listen to our Portrait of an Artist piece with Pizzi where he talks about growing up with a camera in Italy, making his way as an artist in Rome, and what brought him to Austin.
Podcast: Download (1.8MB)
