Benedicte Lacroix turns celebrity portraits into classic paintings

Have you ever wondered how today’s celebrities would look like if they had lived in another era? French artist Bénédicte Lacroix did and decided to mash up portraits of showbiz stars and classic paintings – with hilarious results. Lacroix’s project “Voyages dans le temps” has been on exhibit across her native France.

How did your Photoshop project begin?

A couple of years ago, I was homebound for six weeks because I broke my foot. With a view of killing time, I took a picture of my boyfriend and mashed him into an old painting. I really liked the result and decided to do it again for friends. I reached the bottom of my friend’s list, so I started to work on famous people.

Let’s talk about your creative process: where do you find inspiration?

I often get inspiration from who’s in the news or what’s trending – for example, I mashed up Daft Punk after they won a Grammy Award in 2014. More recently, following the Paris terror attacks, I added the “Je suis Charlie” banner to the patriotic painting “Liberty Leadng the People” by Eugène Delacroix.

How do you create your mashups?

I only work with Photoshop for this project. Each painting is a new challenge: I spend a lot of time trying to recreate the atmosphere of the original painting – light, brushstrokes, etc. – but I also like to play with anachronisms. For example, I turned a guitar into a tennis racket for Federer, and added headphones in Stromae’s hands.

What’s your message behind your artwork?

I do it because it pleases me, with no intention to deliver any kind of message. But I like to think that people may discover the original paintings through my artwork! You share your work on a Tumblr site. What’s been web users’ reaction? I am very surprised and touched by the reaction of the internet community. I received a lot of positive comments on my work.