FRONT GALLERY

ANOTHER STIFLED FRIDAY NIGHT
By Alan Delon

I was quite bored late one night and began watching old black and white films, Humphrey Bogart and the like, when I was suddenly inspired to make paintings of some of the women I saw on the screen.
I quickly realised that these portraits would tie in to Warhol's era of PopArt and his worship of fame and stardom that is said to have mirrored the cultural consumerism of his time. Mirrored? But in the end it was no longer a mirror, it was consumerism, the paintings had become products and instead of making a statement about the culture it merged with it and went right along for the ride. Robert Hughes observed "Some think that so much of today's art mirrors and thus criticises decadence, not so. Its just decadent , full stop. It serves no critical function." So many artists I have noticed that depict glamor, nudity or celebrity claim to be doing so as part of a comment or a reaction to something. But I believe it is a thinly disguised excuse to use or 'borrow' that persons fame or sex appeal as almost free advertising for their own work. A painting of a movie star is a product that carries within itself its own advertisement - an advertisement, with the 'type' or copy removed. I don't claim that the use of celebrity in my work will bring anything other than a decadent result, I only claim to be consciously aware of the function.