The Hitchcock Blonde Triptych (2016) is a trio of video installations designed to cast Alfred Hitchcock's iconic icy blondes in the mold of Andy Warhol's celebrated Marilyn Diptych.

Like Warhol's original creation - aimed at illuminating Marilyn Monroe's status as a pop culture icon - the Hitchcock Blonde Triptych recognizes Janet Leigh (Psycho), Kim Novak (Vertigo), and Tippi Hedren (The Birds, Marnie) as contemporary and reproducible pop iconography.

In homage to Warhol's original five-by-five grid, each video is comprised of a five-by-five-by-five series of stills taken directly from a Hitchcock film; and in an attempt to reinterpret the original screen printing process, each video was created using Photoshop's Layering feature, a modern digital equivalent to the more analogue color-by-color layering process inherent in creating screen prints. As with Warhol's original, variation occurs among the precision of the coloring, here triggered by the repeated movement of the five sequential film frames.

The creation of each video gave rise to its own series of character-appropriate surprises, including a highlighting of Janet Leigh as Marion Crane's manic energy as she escapes Phoenix (Psycho), Kim Novak as Judy Barton's seductive slip in and out of a curated identity (Vertigo), and Tippi Hedren as Melanie Daniels' frantic claustrophobia (The Birds).

Materials: Vertigo, directed by Alfred Hitchcock (1958); Psycho, directed by Alfred Hitchcock (1960); The Birds, directed by Alfred Hitchcock (1963)

August 2016