Pixel Bowie

Colored pencil and ink on paper

33×24 cm / 13×9.4 in, 2020

Not available — €250

Pixel Bowie is based on the image of David Bowie on the cover of Aladdin Sane, photographed by Brian Duffy in 1973.

I chose this image because it is one of those cases in which an artist’s face becomes almost a graphic sign. The lightning bolt, the red hair, and the makeup are not just details, but elements that make Bowie immediately readable, even when the portrait is reduced to just a few pixels.

In this work, I was interested in starting from an already iconic image and bringing it even closer to the boundary between face and sign. The result does not try to represent Bowie realistically, but to preserve just enough for the mind to immediately reconstruct his figure.