Andrea Blanch, Musee Magazine, Suck My Face, New York, NY

know I am very late), and I am obsessed with Kate Gosselin. I want to do a project with her! She is awesome. I’m
Although all of the work I have created with this new series are re-creations made by random people on the internet,
not sure if she would like me, but I love her.
I just completed my first piece where myself or others (my mom in this case) are photo-shopping in there own content
I think that modern society is terrifying, but also incredible. I love the current sense of humor in television, and I
and adding to a historical painting. The newest piece has almost seventy people in it, so I hope it goes well!
think that in a lot of the work I am doing I am trying to show my gratitude for a lot of projects and celebrities I love.
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I love that I can combine things like Picasso with stripper dresses and Yoda with Bouguereau and Fred Savage
In much, maybe even most, of your work you are a presence as a subject. Why do you choose to use
with Cabbage and people think it’s as funny as I do. That’s a world I wanna live in.
yourself as subject/model? Do your images that use yourself as a subject reflect your personality or are you
More specifically the series “Celebrities as Food & Food’lebrities” with works like Lasagna Del Rey and Ma-
playing a character?
donut cast yourself as a celebrity but also a food item. What do you think about celebrity culture today?
I think that I have always been, for whatever reason, very interested in self-deprecating imagery of myself. Maybe
Does it heavily influence your work?
it is because of influences like Roseanne and Divine, or maybe it is just the result of the weirdo overweight kid who
Absolutely. Though my schooling was in art and art history, I am truly inspired by pop culture more than anything.
I love listing my top influences, which always include Roseanne Barr, John Waters, Elvira, Flavor Flav, RuPaul, Dolly
Parton, Carol Burnett and Snooki. I think that celebrity culture is incredible, and when I am re-creating myself as
someone I have a connection to or a memory of is usually when I am most excited about the work. ‘Madonut’
was one of the first “Celebrities as Food” I made, but Madonna was a huge part of my youth, so that one is pretty
special to me.
Jamie Warren “Disco”
has to become a comedian to be popular when they are in school. I could over-analyze myself and talk about
femininity and weight obsession and females in the media and anger and fairness, but really, I just want to make
work that is fun and makes people laugh, and work that people can relate to. I know I am playing a lot of female
roles, and I know I am touching on some touchy subjects, and I do think that is important, but feminism is just as
important/unimportant to me as gender, race, pop culture, celebrity culture, all of these other things I am thinking
about with the work. And I hold being “tan mom” and Shelly Duvall in an image on just as high of a pedestal as I
Jamie Warren “Self-Portrait as Santa in Nymphes et Satyre by William Adolphe Bouguereaut”
Jamie Warren “Self-Portrait as Data from Star Trek The Next Generation in Pieta by Giovanni Bellini”
Jamie Warren “Yoda”
do Yoda or Easy E or an artichoke. I think the interest in this wide of a range of characters makes it easier and more
of my most successful works because it really displays such a huge range of every aspect of what I am trying
interesting discussing me being a vegetable or a giant vagina or fat or skinny or black or albino or Santa or Jesus.
to represent with my photographs. The handmade quality is there, and I think that you can really sense both the
Can you tell me about shooting ‘nudes’ like Self-Portrait as naked lady in the Syndics of the Amsterdam
playfulness and awkwardness of what is happening.
Drapers’Guild by Rembrandt / Gentlemen’s Club by Mundo, 2012?
Do you work with an art director who makes your sets and costumes, or do you do all the production yourself?
In many of my new works I am either partially nude or wearing a nude suit, and I am also lucky enough to
For this newer work, I am generally the art Director, and I have many amazing people helping me to make these
have friends that will pose as nude characters for my work. The largest piece I have made public so far is titled
sets, props and costumes. Lee Heinemann, someone who I have been working with since he was sixteen with
“Self-portrait as Bulls fan in La Jeunesse de Bacchus by William-Adolphe Bouguereau/ Michael Jordan basket-
Whoop Dee Doo, has really been a huge part of the process and has made all of the custom wigs and masks
ball painting by dosysod of the Independents”.
for a majority of the images. I am very lucky to have an incredibly supportive community that has allowed me to
This is a re-creation of a found photo-shopped collage where someone under the pseudonym “dosysod of
the Independents” created an image where he took this famous painting by Bouguereau and inserted a wide
do some pretty large-scale projects both in my personal work and with Whoop Dee Doo. I think that fact in and
of itself has influenced the work I do, and I am incredibly appreciative.
array of Chicago Bulls imagery – from jerseys and basketballs to Michael Jordan myself. For this image, I not only
Do you have any advice for emerging photographers?
needed a wide variety of nudes, but also babies, a donkey and a miniature horse. I think that the nudity in this
I think the best advice I ever got is to stick to what you are excited about. And also that your portfolio is only as
piece made it more of a challenge, but it also brought a very serene and beautiful quality to the image, which
good as your worst piece- so EDIT! And finally “If you cant love yourself how the hell you gonna love someone
clashed very nicely with everything else going on – especially the humorous aspects of this work. I think this is one
else?!?!” I love RuPaul so much!!!!
Jamie Warren “Self-portrait as Bulls fan in La Jeunesse de Bacchus by William-Adolphe Bouguereau “, 2012