Country:
Categories:
With a subversive approach to fine art, Lexi and Allie Kaplan will debut paintings that depict semi-nude selfies of celebrities: Kim Kardashian, Rihanna, Emily Ratajkowski, Nicki Minaj, Kate Upton, Amber Rose, Vanessa Hudgens, and more. Commenting on an overarching theme of exploitation, the Kaplan Twins have developed this new body of work with naked celebrity selfies that are available to the public.
Playing off of society’s obsession and fascination with celebrities, social media, and sex, the Kaplan Twins explore this culture and self-induced exploitation through their oil paintings on canvas. Their work is a commentary on celebrity exploitation and its role in fame, mass media’s reconstruction of reality through manipulation, shock, and spectacle, the seduction of abjection, and the concept of self. The Kaplan Twins want to get people thinking about how a lot of celebrities get famous in America, which is often through sexual exploitation or “sexploitation.”
Make Me Famous explores the complex nature of the alter ego and its role in the various ways different audiences perceive these personas through media manipulation, cultural taboos, celebrity culture, twin identities, fantasies, and fascinations.
Lexi and Allie also insert themselves in most of their work, as a sort of narcissism, and objectify themselves as their subjects. In addition to the unique theme, their atypical process of each twin painting on the canvas at the same time has established a body of work that is both controversial and ingenious.
We are identical twin artists who work as a collaborative team. We both received Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees from New York University and are currently living and working in Los Angeles, California.
Our work explores the complex nature of the alter ego and its role in the various ways different audiences perceive these personas through media manipulation, cultural taboos, celebrity culture, twin identities, fantasies, and fascinations.
We insert ourselves in almost all of our works, as a sort of narcissism, and objectify ourselves and our subjects. Our work is a commentary on celebrity exploitation and its role in fame, mass media’s reconstruction of reality through manipulation, shock, and spectacle, the seduction of abjection, and the concept of self.
Ultimately leading the viewer to interpret our works not just as objects, but as entertainment. More than anything, we like to be ourselves and have fun with the work we make ;)
The mission of De Re Gallery is to embrace a sense of artistic continuity, creating a living dialogue between these masters of the present and the past. We seek great artists whose body of work not only captures the eye, but the imagination.
