Writing, Images, and Pop Culture Overanalysis by Elizabeth Grammaticas
Here’s a peak at the piece I have going up in South Boston Open Studios Group Show. It will be on display this weekend throughout the month of June.
This is my first finished piece in my Marissa Cooper series. This is part of my larger series on exile, exit, and loss in Teen TV. More on that will be posted soon…but for now..here’s Marissa Cooper.
Spoiler Alert: Marissa Cooper is Dead, 12x16, 2011
It’s that time of year….time for Southie Open Studios.
Come by, I will have new work. More info here.
Exiled….ostracized…put on a bus…shamed……dead. Gone.
These sum up my current fascination with characters in teen television…how we deal with loss, goodbyes, change, closure, and death…through the vehicle of teen television programming.
More to come…
I tried to do a Jackie-a-day, I really didt…but I couldn’t. It wasn’t because of my work ethic, although I questioned it. It was my interest level. Jackie sounded great on paper, but not in practice. (I know, that’s a set up for some JFK jokes, but refrain)
I was a bit surprised that Jackie didn’t draw me in as I had hoped. I went into working with Marilyn Monroe’s image having no interest, and seeing no personal indentifications between the two of us…yet here we are, years later…and I am still fascinated by Miss Monroe and continuously being drawn in on am emotional level. While Jackie O. holds much more in common with the people in my own life, I quickly grew bored and detached, which you could see in the work. The drawings and paintings never quite looked like Jackie, and slightly looked like my mother when she was young..or other female members of my family. That’s you get with an icon I guess, but you need something more than just a slight personal touch. Jackie would give me props for knowing when its time to step away….you know..before the point when you have to move to a private Greek island with a rich old man. We part ways for now Jackie, but maybe we’ll talk later.
Sorry Jackie...
More to come on the projects I actually have been working on.
One of the Jackie’s from this week.
Jackie-a-Day, 3/23/11
Years back when I first started working with Marilyn Monroe’s image, the Marilyn’s I initially produced were drastically different from my current Marilyn work. The early Marilyns were aggressive and somewhat grotesque. I knew little about Marilyn outside from her commercial marketing. Then I started my research…and I am still reading new Marilyn books and evolving a relationship and interest in the subject. While this transformation happened, my regret is that I didn’t further document this process and evolution. I do have some snitbits here:
Now I have decided to start a new project with another iconic American lady from a similar historical period. Appropriately, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onasis. For the next month, I will be doing a Jackie drawing a day…and documenting my progress. I have more up front personal connections with Jackie, and I am curious to see how this work/and relationship will evolve. Plus you know, I currently live in Boston…might as well.
Here’s some starters:
Day 1
Jackie 2, (part 1)
Jackie 2 (part 2)
3/19/11
stay tuned……..
Here’s my second painting in my freshly started ‘Poor Little J’ series. If you want to see it in person, it will be on display at “Go Small” at the Distillery Gallery this thursday in South Boston.
Poor Jenny Humphrey, Acrylic and Ink on Panel, 2011
Hey Folks,
I will be participating in the upcoming show “Go Small” which will be held at the Distillery Gallery. The show features over 20 local artists working on 10×10 panels. The opening reception will be February 24th, 6-9. The show will be on display until March 31st. My works will be a surprise even to me as a result of my astounding indecisiveness . Come stop by!
If you have followed my blog for any length at time, it’s probably been brought to your attention that both Shannen Doherty as Brenda Walsh is a master on-screen-teen-crying…and that this is something I am fascinated by. Well Brenda, I think someone has taken the reigns for the next generation. It is none other than Taylor Momsen as Jenny Humphrey from Gossip Girl.
Taylor Momsen has every right to take the reigns from Shannen Doherty. Like Shannen Doherty her personal like ‘drama’,..or more so..being young and snarky in the public eye, overshadows her tv drama. Its been 20 years since Brenda Walsh first graced our televisions with her red-eyes/snotty-nosed/wet-cheeked presence. Jenny Humphrey, or affectionately/hatefully called “Little J” , brings in teen tv crying into the next century with style & bite. She is not just crying for us about break-ups from high school loves…her priorities and successes/failures lie elsewhere . She is crying for utter social destruction, for losing her virginity to an asshole (not her boyfriend/or exboyfriend), for falling from the social graces of NYC elite circles…and for her flaws being flaunted across the internet via gossip blogs. To top it off, she does all this with some damn awesome runny-eyeliner creating a racoon-eyed teen cry tragedy. Could we really ask for anything more?
Jenny Humphrey/Taylor Momsen…you truly deserve to take over the reigns of Teen Queen of TV Tears…and I thank you for that. Please enjoy the following examples.
‘
While Little J may currently be on hiatus from Gossip Girl, I expect that when she comes back it will be with a vengeance of tears….just how I like it.
‘xoxo’
At an attempt to go to back to the crazy concept of…completing an entire sketchbook, I am going back and revising old ‘failed’ or unfinished drawings in my sketchbook.
Here are a couple of sketch book revisions.
Started 2010..picked up and added to in 2011.
