Hollywood and Its Discontents in London

Tuesday, 07 March 2006 10:48

London- Laura Bartlett Gallery presents Dwayne Moser's first solo exhibition in Europe. The Los-Angeles based artist continues his investigation into the mythology of Hollywood’s celebrity culture and the lurid side of fame. His large-scale Untitled Backdrop paintings depict the sites of infamous celebrity crimes. Moser’s four new paintings portray the scenes of notorious episodes involving Paris Hilton, George Michael, Eddie Murphy, Lindsay Lohan and the Simpson Sisters. Moser photographs these locations at the same time of day as the scandals occurred and crops them to a conventional cinematic aspect ratio. He gives them to the Warner Brothers' Scenic Arts Department where studio-lot painters make 6' x 11' acrylic "backdrops" of the images. In turning an off-screen event in a celebrity's life into a backdrop, Moser suggests the very public nature of their private lives and draws attention to a landscape of excess and exposure. Dwayne Moser has exhibited at the Hammer Museum at UCLA, the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm and the Kunstfaktor Produzenten Galerie in Berlin. Laura Bartlett Gallery exhibited two Untitled Backdrop paintings in a group show, The Acceptance World, last June: Untitled Backdrop (site of Hugh Grant and Divine Brown arrest, 6/27/95) and Untitled Backdrop (site of Winona Ryder shoplifting arrest, 12/14/01), both of which are now in the Saatchi Collection. He was named Rolling Stone magazine’s Hot Artist of the Year in 2005. Exhibit ends 25 March. Visit The Laura Bartlett Gallery

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