Sharon Core
Photo courtesy of the artist
Initially trained as a painter, Core began incorporating photography early in her practice. She based her paintings on family pictures or images that she captured with her own camera. In the end, she shifted her focus to photography.
Core finds inspiration in the work of specific artists, such as 19th-century still life painter Raphaelle Peale (cousin of Sarah Miriam Peale and Anna Claypoole Peale), or from a specific genre, like 17th-century Dutch banquet portrait paintings. Whatever the basis, Core studies the original images, scours auction sites for period-appropriate objects, grows heirloom plants, and bakes and decorates desserts to remain true to her source material. For Core, each series has a different intention, but she sees her work “as confronting and playing with aspects of representation, reproduction, and ‘realism’.”
Core received the 2014 Views of Lafite annual photography commission from the Domaines Barons de Rothschild, Chateau Lafite Rothschild, Pauillac, France; a Shifting Foundation Fellowship in 2013; a Rema Hort Mann Foundation Emerging Artist Grant in 2000; and the 1998 George Sakier Memorial Prize for Excellence in Photography from the Yale University School of Art.
