«Baker Street» Limited Edition Print 7/20 Collage

Limited Edition 7 of 20 Mixed Media on Canvas Fine-Art-Print Hand signed & numbered by the Artist, with a certificate of authenticity © 2009 Martina Rall. All rights reserved. This self-portrait is part of my series "Being Marilyn Monroe. Icon Portraits.", a series of self-portraits reflecting and expressing my admiration for and my identification with inspiring modern day icons such as Marilyn Monroe, Frida Kahlo, Audrey Hepburn, Maria Callas, Romy Schneider, Michael Jackson, Grace Kelly and Niki de Saint Phalle. The series is influenced by the work of surrealist female artists like Frida Kahlo and Niki de St. Phalle as well as by Italian author Luigi Pirandello's post-modernist approach on identity theory. And it is based on a series of coincidences, that brought me to explore and re-think the inherent nature of portraying providing a practical meaning to the American poet William Carlos Williams' quote: «The artist is always and forever painting only one thing: a self-portrait». To Marilyn Monroe I felt attracted by her beauty and sensitivity. Sex symbol and orphan child, in search of love and a home her whole life through. To men she was an object of irresistible desire, because at the same time she expressed that extra feminine “guard me and protect me”. But Marilyn was more than her appearance. She never left home without Rilke’s poems. Her tragedy is that she made herself disappear behind Marilyn, playing a role for her lifetime. The title "Baker Street" refers to Norma Jean Baker, who vanished behind Marilyn Monroe.