Like Ernest Cognac and Marie-Louise Jay, many prosperous people in history have asked painters to recreate their identities in a painted portrait. Today, the act of painting is replaced by taking selfies and sharing them on social media to construct a portrait of our virtual selves. The technology has changed but the idea of the portrait depicting our appearances and showing our status has remained. The Heart Calligraphy series are not depicting appearances but the physiology of our bodies. Modern day technology and the portraits of Cognacq and Jay inspired us to create this portrait depicting a couple, facing each other by using the input of their heart rates.

Year: 2016
Dimensions: 90cm x 70cm
Material: Oil on canvas
Commission: This work is created for the exhibition Symbiosis in the museum Cognac-Jay in Paris and is a response on the portraits of Ernest Cognac and Marie-Louise Jay.
Credits: Heart Calligraphy is a collaboration with Bin Yu and is supported by the DI Group, Industrial Design, TU/e (Loe Feijs, Jun Hu, Mathias Funk)