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Walking past a shop that sells tabloids and trashy women's magazines it's hard to ignore the barrage of headlines with the latest news and gossip about Brad and Jen and Angelina, Nicky Watson and that guy from Blindspott or whats-their-face's latest weight problem. Being constantly exposed to the intimate details of these celebrities' lives courtesy of Johnny Paparazzi, and tipped over the edge by reality TV it's no wonder we tend to take refuge in the two-dimensional characters that soap-operas and sit-coms offer, and then get so upset when someone messes with those characters.
We first came across Glen Frenzy's work at a friend's house a few years ago, where a fantastic and disturbing portrait of Radar from M*A*S*H was hanging on the wall. For most anyone who has grown up with a hefty diet of M*A*S*H re-runs on TV, characters like Hawkeye and Hotlips Houlihan are instantly recognizable, icons of a war and a time that perhaps most of us know very little else about. After all those years of reruns it was a truly arresting and alarming thing to see Glen's painting and suddenly witness lovable old Radar in such an uncompromising position.
Mixing odd slices of reality and the kind of celebrities that cram the pages of 'The Truth', Glen's paintings often feature characters you vaguely recognise, only thrown slightly eschew - keep an eye out for that guy you saw at the mall with the unbelievable mullet, Mark Lundy and Rugby League heroes of yesteryear. Collecting together over 5five years of work, 'Treasures' will be the first time that these paintings have been shown together as a group. This is our first show with Glen, and he has kindly taken time out from preparing a Billy Joel tribute album to bring this collection together.
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