THE NORTH RIDING PROJECT

I decided to take elements from the painting and transform them.  Satyrs became child soldiers; I made Venus’s dress ripped, alluding to rape, and there’s a mine visible through a hole in the backdrop.  I wanted Venus to represent Africa, a continent that has been, and continues to be, raped – because that’s where all the resources lie.  Botticelli used Simonetta Vespucci, an aristocrat famous for her beauty, as his model.  Who, I wondered, is today’s best known beauty of African descent? Naomi Campbell came to mind.

LaChapelle/Guardian, 2014