Elene Usdin’s latest series of work “Les Habitants” (“The Inhabitants”) blurs the boundaries between photography and painting, and teenagers and masterpieces. The French artist photographed each of her teenage subjects in the same space and then painted directly onto the resulting prints. She spent around 250 hours on each image, working with both the patience and the wild imagination of the Old Masters whose works inspire her, and the results are psychedelic and spectacular. A model named Benjamin gazes peacefully into the distance as Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s “The Fall of the Rebel Angels” (1562) unfolds across his chest. Eva confronts us with her arms crossed over Paolo Uccello’s telling of the story of “Saint George and the Dragon” (c. 1470). Olga cradles the puppet from Angel Zarraga’s “Woman and Puppet” (1909) so that it becomes impossible to tell which is the real puppeteer.

More information at: Galerie Esther Woerdehoff