Lyman Allyn Art Museum in New London, Connecticut presents Mentoring Courtney Love: David LaChapelle and Courtney Love, an exhibition on view now through August 10, 2013.
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. www.lymanallyn.org