Why So Serious?

Alot of the work featured in my current show (which I will be posting about in a few days if not sooner) has been inspired by my intense love for glossy fashion magazine spreads (& the historical figures they are based on). The poses of models in photographs as well as their clothing pop up in my paintings. Earlier in life I felt conflicted with this obsession due to my literary background. I was haunted: isn't fashion soulless? Don't magazines try to dictate how I should look and feel? How I should consume products far beyond my income? However, I have become recently reconciled to this and feel that clothing and the photographs are art...as I have stumbled across such dark and lovely magazines such as  Zink, Pop and Lula which I wish wish wish came out more than 4 times a year. I have serious magazine love and handle them as one would rare plastic sheathed comic books (rubber gloves aside). They take over a large bookshelf in my studio as reference material......

Clothing designer Luella seems to be popping up everywhere, first spotted in the beloved Nylon mag. Interestingly the clothing showcases inspirations from 80's Batman graphics as well as the  admitted muse of the work, the delightful and deep film 'Ghost World'. 

Since the world has gone Bat Crazy since the release of the newest Batman film I thought it made the clothing all the more relevant in our modern day Gotham.  More of these juxtapositions of fashion and dark ideas will pop up in the work I'll start producing in the upcoming weeks.