Andy Warhol

I'm going to begin by saying I've never liked Andy Warhol. I've never gone out of my way to look at his work, yet he's one of those artists who is unavoidable. We've all seen the Campbell's soup can, we've all seen his print of Marilyn Monroe, and we all know that his work is known as pop-art.

What I didn't know is that while creating my print-type repeated self portrait image, I was blatantly ripping off Warhol. I had definitely seen the Marilyn Monroe picture beforehand and acknowledged some influence there, but I do not recall having ever seen THIS version where Warhol has used my favored 3x3 presentation format. Perhaps it was stowed in my subconscious, perhaps I'd never seen it before, either way, the similarities are undeniable. .

Just when I though my copycat predicament couldn't get any worse, I discovered that Warhol has also created an image that looks like the second version of my work (which in this case I'd DEFINITELY not seen prior to creating my copycat version!)

I guess the most important thing for me here is to acknowledge the differences (however subtle they are) and analyze the similarities, all whilst trying to get over the fact that I accidentally created a piece of art based on an artist I've never liked (although now I understand his work a lot better I'm beginning to take a shine to that time traveling, idea stealing twerp).

One of the main differences between Warhol's work and my own, is that I do not consider my work pop-art. Although it looks the same on the surface, my images was not taken from the media or popular culture, but was simply the product of one of my school projects. The themes remain similar though. It is said that Warhol's images deal with "sex, money, power, success and failure" which are all key elements in the images I have produced, as I am dealing with the idea of power, money & success and the pressure on modern women to use sex in order to attain these ideals.