Agape Charmani for Art-Sheep
James Kerr aka Scorpion Dagger is no doubt an internet phenomenon. The Canadian artist took over my life 2 years ago, when I first saw his GIF animations on his blog. Emphasizing on Jesus Christ, pizza and vintage photos, he began experimenting with GIFs in 2012. Although his first works were pretty basic, he quickly found his style when his obsession with Jesus developed into an interest for Renaissance iconology.
Focusing on eyes and mouths, Kerr’s small edits on the scenes he uses, create a hilarious outcome. Pretty much anything can happen in these bizarre GIFs, in which he puts characters from Renaissance paintings and medieval tapestry in the most awkward situations. As he mentions in his interview for thecreatorsproject, his inspiration came when he was helping a friend with a project, that led him unfold his talent in GIF making. After experimenting with various themes, he realized that working with Renaissance paintings was not only extremely interesting and provocative, but also convenient, as he wouldn’t have to deal with copyrights. He sees his work as a rebellious take on art history, where the characters are behaving like modern people who eat pizza, play drinking games and pull pranks on each other. “Slowly, I developed this idea of using these old paintings to create a world where the characters on the canvas would leave the museum and go home to this place I created for them. It’s actually a pretty natural fit for me because I’m fairly politically inclined, and the nature of these paintings lends perfectly to some of the critiques of things like religion and modernity that I’d like to explore”.
I don’t know what the artists would think of Scorpion Dagger’s take on their works, but if they were people with a sense of humor, they would find his renditions at least amusing.
