Painter of Kitsch

If You Really Want To Buy Art, This Ain't It...

I don't remember when I first heard about this painter named Thomas Kinkade. Probably one of those ads in the Parade section in the Sunday paper.

Anyway, this guy Kinkade paints mostly pictures of quaint little houses lit from within, usually on the edge of a forest or covered in snow. The kind of art that appeals to the same folks that collect the kitschy crap churned out by the Franklin Mint, I suppose.

He portrays himself as a painter inspired by God, and himself as so devout he gave his children the same middle name of "Christian".

According to a recent article in the L.A. Times, though, there may be a little bit of the asshole mixed in with all that oil paint!

Here's a tidbit...

Thomas Kinkade is famous for his luminous landscapes and street scenes, those dreamy, deliberately inspirational images he says have brought "God's light" into people's lives, even as they have made him one of America's most collected artists.

A devout Christian who calls himself the "Painter of Light," Kinkade trades heavily on his beliefs and says God has guided his brush — and his life — for the last 20 years.

But some former Kinkade employees, gallery operators and others contend that the Painter of Light has a decidedly dark side.

In sworn testimony and interviews, they recount incidents in which an allegedly drunken Kinkade heckled illusionists Siegfried & Roy in Las Vegas, cursed a former employee's wife who came to his aid when he fell off a barstool, and palmed a startled woman's breasts at a signing party in South Bend, Ind.

And then there is Kinkade's proclivity for "ritual territory marking," as he called it, which allegedly manifested itself in the late 1990s outside the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim.

"This one's for you, Walt," the artist quipped late one night as he urinated on a Winnie the Pooh figure, said Terry Sheppard, a former vice president for Kinkade's company, in an interview.

Judging from the article, it appears that the 'Painter of Light' is also the 'Asshole mas Grande'!

Well, whenever someone needs an injection of reality, those hyenas over at Something Awful are eager to oblige!

As part of their regular Photoshop Phriday contest, they've had not one but two episodes of altering Kinkade's work to do some much needed improvement.

Go check them both out!

Some of them are mildly amusing, but these two made me spew Diet Dr Pepper on my monitor screen.

Enjoy!





Via Boing Boing