These are portraits of fellow artists during my residency at Art Center / South Florida.   

Influenced by Orhan Pamuk's award winning novel "My Name is Red", this is my homage not only to that of fellow artists, but also to the bygone era of eastern miniatures. "My Name Is Red" recounts the  altruistic lifestyle of Turkish miniaturist artists at a conflicting age when Islam prohibited portraiture labeling it iconoclastic. This was an era in which the "Infidel Art" of the Renaissance was sending shock waves throughout the Islamic world, and artists were regarded as 'fuels for the fires of hell'. Pamuk's artists led a life of duality and internal clash which I strongly resonate to. 

Museums today have slowly replaced houses of worship, and art has become our new "Religion". I reassign artists as our new prophets, albeit ironic temporal ones. By elevating the status of my artists to that of saints and prophets, I question the symbiotic relationship between the artist and the art market. Rescinding the undeniable value of artists to society, I give them the ranks akin to sacred prophets or deities of eras past.

As artists we are all convictable  to some extent of being negligent to the true power of art in contemporary society while relying on sales to survive. Through art we bare our souls to spectators. Aspiring to sell to the highest "bidder", we are in essence "Burlesque Saints", stripping our souls to please and tease our audience.

All photos in the 'Saint Burlesque' series are courtesy of Alfonso Corona.