I just saw a screening of the movie Local Color, written and directed by fellow So-cal painter George Gallo. I've never seen the French Easel featured so much in a film or a lead actor dropping names like Nicolai Fechin or John F. Carlson, or even talk about local color. The story is based on the director's life, as an 18 year old in the 1970's wanting to learn to paint representational in a time when the art world considered realistic painting old fashioned and irrelevant. The main character finds a bitter old master Russian painter who he persuades to teach him to paint. In one funny scene Seroff (the Russian master) is asked to judge an exhibition of "progressive" art, and after getting an obfuscating explanation about a minimalist painting by the artist, he storms out and gives the award to the air conditioner because "it's the only F-ing thing that works". In another great scene, Seroff shows some modern art paintings to an art dealer who then goes nuts over them until he's told they were made by Down Syndrome kids. So, if you have an appreciation for representational painting you need to go see it when it comes out December 5th. According to George everything in the movie really happened to him.
Check out the trailer on the apple site. You can also see some clips on the movie's website.
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