I don’t think it’s any secret to my regular readers, but I have sort of a love hate thing going on with the world of celebrities. It’s like the car accident on the side of the road that you can’t help but look at when you pass by. About one year ago, I gave up my cable television subscription, which has nullified my Access Hollywood, and Entertainment Tonight viewing. I now cringe at the sight of gossip rags when I’m in the line at the Supermarket, although I never was one to pay attention to this trash. Like I could care that Tom Cruise is an Alien, and that Elvis and Clay Aitken had a love child named Hannah Montanah. I’m getting off topic, but the bottom line is that I don’t know what’s going on in Hollywood, and for the most part, I don’t care.
I do care about art, and when it collides with the world of celebrity, I tend to pay attention. Steve Ellis new series of “trashy glamour and disposable, dangerous pop still lifes” demonstrates broken high heels to a stripping pen, guns that blast and a crashed Swinger. His neo-pop artworks glorify and vilify the detritus that Man leaves behind him. “The crumpled magazines he paints are simple appropriations from an already trashy subject”, Ellis explains. “By distorting the glossy celebrities and text, a new ugly truth is unveiled. Gossip magazines and downward spiralling celeb stories printed weekly in glossy rags trumps real news about our world today because somehow people can’t get enough.” How true.
