Artist recreates vintage family photos in stunning project

Los Angeles-based artist Christine H. McConnell dug into the archives to achieve a stunning project, where she recreated several family photos dating back nearly 200 years.

It all started about two years ago when an old driver’s license belonging to McConnell’s mom tumbled out of a drawer.

“I found myself looking at it upside down,” the 33-year-old artist tells Yahoo Canada. “Seeing it flipped kind of gave me a new perspective on her appearance, and I realized we had a nearly identical bone structure.

“A year later my Mother gave me a red dress she had held onto for 25 years. When I tried it on and saw that it fit, the idea occurred to me,” she continues. “My objective was to see just how similar we looked if I replicated as much as I could. The result surprised me so much, it inspired me to look further into past generations to see how much gets passed down.”

So, McConnell set out to recreate five vintage portraits of women in her family (plus one of herself and an adorable one of her family’s horse, Trigger), the oldest dating back to 1821.

“The oldest image is actually a drawing that had hung in my parents’ house all my life,” she says. “My mother didn’t even know who the woman was. However, after sifting through old scrapbooks and documents my mom had and carefully dismantling the framing of the antique image, I was able to figure out everyone’s names and birth years.”

This isn’t the first time McConnell’s surreal portraits have made headlines. Last year, a captivating photo set inspired by the 1950s beauty ideal and sinister horror flicks went viral. But this time, the photos were way less Tim Burton-esque.

While she admits the process was research-heavy and tedious – she had to stage lighting to match the original photograph, sew matching outfits and even had to weave soaked reeds to form a matching wicker background to her mother’s photo – she also says it was a lot of fun.

“Hair and makeup was a blast,” McConnell says. “I’ve done both professionally for years and a new challenge is always exciting. And seeing yourself with hairstyles you would never normally wear is strange and fun as well.

“I view the whole project as a genealogical experiment,” she says. “We all come from so many different places and our genes are so diluted over the years. It’s amazing to me to see what lingers; whether it be cheekbones, ears or just a smile.”

To see more of McConnell’s art, check out her Instagram or Flickr pages.