Bernard Clark likes working in series.  Known for his Tattoo Portrait series, he has also explored numerous other sets of work.  At Studio22, we have seen Musician and Artist Portraits, Hotel signs, Pop Art signs and Camera series. 

His newest effort, Celebrity Mugshots, is part of Clark’s ongoing Notorious Series which began with tiny mugshots of gangsters he had been contemplating using for some time.  Working with copywrite-free images – such as mugshots, driver’s licenses and military ID’s, Clark uses his own photographs of keyboard keys, scrabble tiles, dice and other such small pieces to work with an algorithm to recompose his subjects.  He digitally blows the images up and reconstructs them using tiny pieces creating new portraits that are strikingly realistic from a distance and pixilated and less recognizable close up.

This new Pop-Up exhibit is composed of 8 brand new portraits combined with 8 created and shown at the gallery over the past year.  An interesting new facet to the celebrity mugshots is that of the FAKE mugshot.  Several in the grouping were staged for entertainment purposes.  Can you tell the real from the fake?  And why do so many celebrities have real mugshots?

All Clark’s images are Limited Edition Fine Art prints.