Fashion meets forensics in new pop art collection

Fashion meets forensics in a new form of Canadian portraiture that reimagines the buyer’s fingerprints as pop art.

A quirky part of the bio-art movement, these custom-made pieces allow people to express who they are in the most literal sense by having their arches, loops and whorls enlarged up to 4,000 per cent and immortalized in coloured ink.

Just three days after going public with their creative venture, Ottawa geneticist Nazim Ahmed and entrepreneur Adrian Salamunovic — riding high on the commercial success of their first-generation product, DNA portraits — have already sold fingerprint artworks to enthusiasts in the United States and Asia.

“I think Andy Warhol would be doing something similar to what we’re doing now if he was still alive,” says Salamunovic, co-founder of DNA 11.

“One thing I learned from reading about him and his work is that it’s not always the art that’s the central piece. Sometimes it’s the idea behind the art.”

Interested buyers first select the size, style and colour of their desired art. DNA 11 then mails them a fingerprint collection kit, along with instructions on making a proper impression.

Once the kit has been returned to an Ontario lab, a high-resolution scan is made, with each dermal ridge adjusted for clarity. Digital wizardry is then used to enlarge and colour the final image.

The entire process takes about two months, with prices ranging from about $215 to $560.

“With most art, you’re looking at somebody else’s meaning or interpretation of something,” says Salamunovic. “We empower people to create their own art in collaboration with us.”

Fingerprint portraiture is part of the recent boom in art that uses biotechnology as a medium; everything from living tissue to human blood is being incorporated in these artworks. Although some find the design movement an exercise in vanity, an expert on ego believes that’s not strictly the case.

“To qualify as a narcissistic art form, it must abuse or exploit people or demonstrate a manifest lack of empathy; narcissistic art revolves around a self-delusional sense of entitlement,” says Sam Vaknin, author of Malignant Self Love: Narcissism Revisited. “I can’t see any of these in the fingerprint (portraits).”

In the hands of a Donald Trump-sized ego, however, Vaknin notes “any art form can become an expression of narcissistic traits — especially an art form which involves the narcissist’s body.”

Salamunovic describes the company’s core clientele as sentimental, not self-obsessed.

“Putting a portrait of yourself above the fireplace is narcissistic. This is more symbolic,” he says. “Yes, we’ve had people on Wall Street who’ve bought our art for their executive offices to show off their cool DNA. But the majority of our clients are buying it for someone else … because they want to give a gift that has meaning.”