Mystic Country

The concept of mentoring is one not often associated with the contemporary art world. Yet artist Courtney Love, best known as a musician, credits artist and photographer David LaChapelle with mentoring her as a visual artist. Love's work, featured in this exhibition, are all works on paper. They are executed in a combination of pastel, watercolor, graphite, colored pencil, charcoal, acrylic, and marker. The works on view are all portraits, including some self-portraits, and this is where we see the relationship between her work and that of her mentor David LaChapelle. While LaChapelle's photographic portraits are slick and hyper-real, Love's portraits are sketch-like and spontaneous. Her images are raw and full of emotion, and they bear a resemblance to her music. There is a consistency in vision between her music and her visual art that suggests an authenticity of expression.