Raised Profiles

Catherine Opie and Cindy Sherman make a cameo appearance.

- Catherine Opie And Cindy Sherman

The light-bulb moment for Liz Swig’s latest project came as she viewed the photographs of American artist Catherine Opie at Thomas Dane Gallery in London at the end of 2017. ‘I had always known Cathy’s work to have an old-master quality,’ says Swig. ‘But I distinctly remember standing in front of her oversized oval photographs, thinking how cameo-like they were.’

Swig, who founded Liz works in 2014 as a platform for creative collaboration with contemporary artists, approached Opie to ask whether she would be interested in working together to reimagine her portraits in another form. Opie was impressed by Swig’s 2016 project Charmed (W*215), a charm bracelet encompassing works by seven leading female artists, and agreed immediately. ‘Charmed was an incredibly beautiful piece and after an initial conversation with Liz, I was sure she would take care of my ideas,’ says Opie. ‘I had been making these portraits that I always felt were a conversation with cameos anyway, especially when I started making the ovals with the black background. I really wanted to make something contemporary in relationship to the cameo, to bring the cameo back.’