live forever

live forever

Okay, I know, I know... Everything I talk about either comes from the New York Times, New York Magazine, or other assorted NYC related publications. Still, how genius are these pastel portraits of cast members from MTV's "The Hills" by Karin Bubaš?

I don't really watch "The Hills" (though I will cop up to being a minor fan of "The City", it's prettier sister) but I've seen enough to recognize most of the cast members and to familiarize myself with Lauren's crying jags (as hilariously portrayed by Karin). Through Karin's lens, they become soapy, touchingly funny, and a little heartbreaking. As Joshua David Stein writes, "Chalk pastels are the soft focus of the art world — the Lifetime channel on paper — and for the characters of the notoriously high-definition, supersaturated “The Hills,” the medium is humanizing."

Part of the appeal may stem from my obsession with celebrity portraits. One of my favorite artists is painter Elizabeth Peyton, who has gained a lot of street and fashion cred within the last several years. Peyton's paintings are saturated, whimsical, and melancholy. There's a strong sense of character in her pieces - she focuses on her subjects which, more often than not, tend to be celebrities. Perhaps her most famous series of paintings are the ones she's done of Kurt Cobain, which are admittedly naively touching in a velvet painting sort of way.

Michelle Obama

Mad King Ludwig II

Kurt Cobain.

She started out doing portraits of historical figures such as Napoleon and Mad King Ludwig, which was how I found out about her (minor obsession). What really impresses me is that while most celebrity portraits are either distantly ironic or just tacky (though there's not necessarily any thing wrong with either). With Peyton, however, you can sense the genuine love and care that she feels towards each of her subjects. She only paints people with whom she feels a genuine accord. I can't comment on how good of a painter she is, but each painting emotes such an intense mood that it's hard not to get involved.

Jarvis Cocker and Liam Gallagher

Kurt