BELLWETHER is pleased to present the work of artists Fritz Chesnut and Bill Walker.
"When a star morphs and becomes a mega-celebrity, we, with walleyed, wet-pantsed adoration, seek to emulate and adore their omnipresence; to approximate their Platonic forms of divine, eye-broiling physical perfection, to heed their wise utterances and to follow them more nearly, day by day, because we are pathetic, brainless sheep."
This show of new paintings by two vitally important artists tacitly acknowledges this fact, and forces us to consider whether or not our lives are worth living if we�re not ultra, super-famous.
The paintings of William Walker inspire chest-beating, hair-pulling and garment-rending awe. Executed in glorious 2 dimensional black and white, they evoke listening to someone play the entire O-Town repertoire on a plastic kazoo: virtuosic and comforting, yet above all, a warning. His stunning regurgitations of popular celebrities, juxtaposed with other stars that would never be at the same party together, forces the viewer to consider the question, "Why are they naked?" Walker�s work, heavily influenced by the visual holocaust of US, People and Entertainment Weekly magazines, utilizes the profound utterances of celebrities queried in their most personable moments to problematize the rubric of the celebrity/fan relationship. "Stars are hot," Walker claims. But dare we say Holy?
The searing, face-melting rapture and agony found in the work of Fritz Chesnut is achieved through his swinging of the spotlight�s gaze away from the stars, and training it on the fans. Chesnut�s virtuosic baroque paintings emphasize the existential musth, and cataclysmic panty-throwing that marks such events as Limp Bizkit�s appearance on MTV�s Total Request Live. In his own words: "I love that moment between fan and star, or fan and camera, where self- consciousness and a mob mentality meet. My work draws on the parallel between entertainment and religion and points to the modern transcendental nature of fame." The Bacchanalian fervor of the fans Chesnut has captured surrounding The Today Show on weekday mornings seems chillingly critical; indeed, they seem poised to storm the barricades and feverishly eat Katie Couric.
Cintra Wilson is the author of A Massive Swelling: Celebrity Re-examined as a Grotesque, Crippling Disease and Other Cultural Revelations. Her recent essay on Salon.com, "The Oscars: Somebody Make it Stop" was an e-mail forwarding phenomenon, shamefully linked-to by the websites of both Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh.
BELLWETHER is an artist-run space in support of emerging artists.
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