Cool Clones

My introduction to the concept of cloning was not via a newspaper or magazine, it was through the film, The Boys From Brazil, which details a bizarre plot by nazis who have fled to South America to clone copies of Adolf Hitler. At the time I had a studio in the central business district of Melbourne and I was interested in commenting on the crowds of look alike office workers I used to see daily. The two separate ideas fused when cloning became a compelling metaphor for framing the concept of the print.

The 'clones' came from television stills captured from a movie whose title I don't recall and the images for the heads were treated to strip away detail, thereby suggesting the clones prematurely formed nature. The background high rise required an appalling uniformity that indicates the clones natural habitat and it came from a book on hotel architecture. The image, which is the Tel Aviv Hilton, was mirrored and spliced to the original to form an imprisoning wall and subtly echo the twining of the clones.

I was pleased to note a copy of the print at a party I attended and when I asked the hostess' reason for buying the work she answered that it perfectly reflected the professional trap she was in at the time.