2025-08-28

BEHIND THE PAINTINGS: David in Paper: A Collage of Power, Fame, and Desire

For a decoration project at the interior design store where I work, I went in search of an image that radiates strength and recognition, yet leaves room for interpretation. I landed on an iconic fragment of Michelangelo’s David—a face that reveals its identity with nothing more than a brow, a curl, and a pair of lips. But instead of a reproduction, I chose to reshape him. Not in stone, but in paper. Not as decoration, but as narrative.

From Concept to Collage

Together with the stylist, I worked on a presentation for a design brand, where black-and-white imagery with an Italian touch took center stage. Alongside photoshopped film icons from the 1960s with tattooed bodies and models whose facial features were replaced by classical sculpture fragments, we searched for something extra—something unexpected.

At home, I started with an old advertising board, framed in black with a transparent plexiglass sheet. On the back, I glued white A4 sheets as a base. On this surface, I roughly sketched David’s face as the foundation for my collage.

Paper with a Past

The building blocks of the piece were carefully selected newspaper pages and clippings, chosen for their black-and-white contrast, text structure, and imagery:

- A front page from The Times with a sensational article about Marilyn Monroe in the morgue—“HOLY SHIT; Marilyn undressed in the morgue.”

- A piece from The New York Times about the moon landing.

- A page from a Chinese phone book, full of white space—perfect for highlights on the nose.

- A censored article where only words like McChicken remained—ideal for the darker zones around the eyes and brows.

- An article on social distancing, featuring circles and a solitary figure—a visual metaphor for isolation.

Each fragment was cut and pasted on the spot. More white for the nose, more black for the eyes and brows, curls in his hair built from text snippets, and denser layers of text across the face. Small visual jokes added a wink to the absurdity of media and fame: the phrase HOLY SHIT appears just beside his lips, while next to his eye—precisely in the direction he’s gazing—you’ll find the article with Marilyn’s photo. As if he’s looking at her and making the exclamation. A subtle, playful reference that adds an extra layer for those who look closely.

David as Icon: Between Classical Ideal and Queer Whisper

Michelangelo’s David, completed between 1501 and 1504, is far more than a biblical hero. He’s a symbol of strength, beauty, and defiance. Created during a time when Florence stood as a republic resisting tyranny, David literally and figuratively represented the small that dares to challenge the mighty.

But David is also an icon of desire. His naked, muscular body, intense gaze, and almost sensual tension have made him a beloved figure in queer circles. In gay culture, David often serves as a subtle nod to identity and longing—a visual ideal that invites interpretation. His presence whispers: here, you’re free to be who you are.

Michelangelo himself was fascinated by the male form. His body of work—from David to the Ignudi on the Sistine Chapel ceiling—is saturated with an almost obsessive attention to masculine beauty. Some art historians suggest he even modeled female figures on male bodies. Whether Michelangelo was queer remains debated, but his work speaks a language that resonates with queer aesthetics and desire.

Layered Construction

In my collage, David receives a new skin. Not marble, but paper. Not eternity, but ephemera. The clippings—from Marilyn to McChicken—form a body that not only looks, but speaks. A body that carries echoes of fame, isolation, absurdity, and longing. And perhaps, just perhaps, of queer identity. Because what is identity, if not a collage of impressions, memories, and stories?

As a finishing touch, I added accents and shadow lines with transparent grey paint, carefully preserving the visibility of the underlying text. By pressing the matte plexiglass tightly against the image in its black frame, a crisp, layered composition emerged—one that came fully alive in the store’s presentation.

A Work to Be Experienced

Only when standing in front of it do you see how the piece is built. It draws you into a story of countless clippings, from bold headlines to silent white spaces. A face that not only gazes, but speaks—in the language of our time. David is no longer a marble hero, but a collage of transience, media, and human echoes.

Want to see more of my work or learn how I create my images? Follow me on Instagram, or drop by the store. Every piece tells its own story—sometimes loud, sometimes whispering, but always with a heart made of paper.