Review

"Madonna Verde," Acrylic on Canvas.

Stefan Jones
Fame Monsters

5-8 p.m.

S2 Studios
750 Armstrong
Kansas City, KS

One night only.

If Eleanor Roosevelt was right, our national mental batting average is somewhere south of the Mendoza Line, and on a downward track.

She put it more succinctly, of course: Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.

And we do love discussing people, don't we? From tabloid TV to the ink-and-paper originals in the supermarket checkout line, from fan sites to sports talk radio, the evidence is overwhelming: This is a culture fixated on fame, those who have it ... and how to get it for ourselves.

The funny thing is, we continue to pursue fame and the famous, even when we see how celebrity status can change people — often, though not always, for the worse. (Paradoxically, that just makes us more obsessed; the more a celebrity misbehaves, the greater the public interest. It's schadenfreude on steroids and acid.)

Those transformations drive Stefan Jones' Fame Monsters, which will be on display tonight only at S2 Studios in downtown Kansas City, Kan.

Jones, a KCK native, created the collection of acrylic paintings for his senior show at the University of Arkansas-Pine Bluff. He took his title from the magazine (and now webzine) Famous Monsters of Filmland, and his inspiration from the life, career and death of the King of Pop.

I have always been aware of people’s obsession with the famous, but it came to a forefront with the death of Michael Jackson, Jones writes. I noticed how people were paying more attention to the life of this man, who they had never met in person, than to their own life and family. In my "Fame Monsters" series I bring attention to that celebrity fascination by implementing expressive color schemes along with exaggerated, larger-than-life scale of celebrity faces. My current work draws influence from Andy Warhol’s content, Chuck Close’s format, and the Fauvist tradition of untamed, expressive color. Society has chosen to place individuals above and beyond reality, therefore I shall depict them beyond reality.

Jackson is here (the 1980s version, post-plastic surgery but pre-disfigurement). So is Elvis. So is Madonna, depicted in an H.R. Giger-meets-James Whale fashion in Madonna Verde, today's featured image. (Jones' distortions, oddly, make his celebrities more recognizable rather than less so. )

Jones aims to create neo-Pop Art, and he certainly succeeds in elevating the icons of our times. Fame Monsters should launch discussions,  not only about the people Jones depicts and the events and efforts that made them famous ... but also, one might hope, about the idea of living our own lives to the full rather than being obsessed with the likes/dislikes, loves and frailties of this or that performer.

-re-

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