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The Icon and Idol painter.

THE ICON AND IDOL PAINTER (a film).

A documentary about the art of Victor Pross is near completion. The title of this little opus is called "The Icon and Idol painter" - which is loosely based on Victor Pross' book "Icons and Idols -Pop goes the culture".

The documentary is primarily an exposé of Victor's art, but it is also comprised of various other elements: television interviews with the artist, insightful intimate footage from his private life. This "slice of life" permits the audience to know more about the artist, which simply serves to illuminate the art. But it is the art that drives the documentary.

Victor Pross' hyper-intensive paintings explore the shifting boundaries between beauty and ugliness developing out of the artist's fascination with the illusionary aspects of pop culture. Pross’ paintings examine the varying layers of human perception by manipulating form and color and tours a netherworld populated by movie stars, musicians political figures, and ordinary people that are stretched and distorted but are always alarmingly recognizable. Pross employs a meticulous melding of hyperrealism and surrealism to make his vision come to life. His book, "Icons & Idols" magnificently surveys the past decade of Pross' vision and insights of the human condition, but it is the movie that has greater layers to it.

In the art world, caricature has a bad reputation. In fact, it is not even considered to be a real art. At best, it is seen as some kind of comic effect, a childish indulgence or a phone-chat doodle, and not as the rare precise craft that it can be. The general public, too, regards caricaturists with a faint condescension, as if to say, “Hey, that’s a terrific drawing of Jack Nicholson, but what do you do in real life?” Pross' art raises caricature to a whole new level.

It is not only the world of celebrity -pop culture- that Pross' pokes fun at with a paint brush. Pross paints caricatures of recognizable archetypes and stereotypes, small town eccentrics out of Sinclair Lewis, often Midwestern but just as likely to be Southern or Southern California, New Englander or big city New Yorkers. He’s a keen observer of character types. He punches and pulls the divine human form into silly putty shapes, a form he figures is more appropriate to what God designed, a being he does not grant the virtue of existence. Pross does more than observe characters—he searches them out and eggs them on in conversation, as a kind of research project. He aims his brand of caricaturing at the cerebrum; he peppers his striking imagery with visual clues thus revealing deeper traits of his subject’s personality---all this to amuse the artistic intelligentsia. Pross will lampoon everything he deems ludicrous in mainstream culture. He has an acute eye for the irreverent and a tilted view of life that sees the world through a cracked bottle of seltzer. He is the confrontational artist. But for all of his radical exaggeration and darkly subversive caricaturing, his work is essentially grounded in the real world. His grotesque caricatures do not necessarily harp on physical imperfections. They are a study of spiritual imperfections and intellectual maladies. This is the heart and soul of his art.

One of the most endearing elements of "The Icon and Idol painter" is not only the bevy of art shown - the very thing which distinguishes Pross -it is the simple pleasure of being allowed into the man's private life. We see ample archival 1980s home footage which shows the artist as a young man in his 20s struggling, both professionally and personally. We see the artist in various life manifestations: manic creative modes, arguing with his girlfriend, party binges and, very significantly, Pross' consorting with various intellectuals and other artists--people who were to change his way of looking at the world, both politically and philosophically, which inevitably shaped the direction of his art. Overall, the footage is honest and candid. Pross's own narration only serves the visuals.

All of this gives "The Icon and Idol painter" warmth and honesty--it shines light on his art which is already "in your face".

In later life, we see Pross' work with British Columbia artist Rebecca Bessette. In 2008, Bessette and Pross joined forces to create a series of paintings featuring iconic Jazz and Blues musicians, which they simply called "The Jazz Series". Each artist brought their distinctive style to the works—with each artist contributing their wares to the same canvas. Two artists working on a single canvas is a first in art history.

In closing: "The Icon and Idol painter" is weird, it is beautiful, it is strange, it is funny - but most certainly it is also poignant. There are few documentaries, I trust, that offers so many levels in the telling of an artist's life

Uploaded on Nov 11, 2010

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