Cool Stuff: Backgrounds Come To The Forefront In Brooklyn Art Show

So much of today's pop culture art is about the foreground. Actually, pretty much all of it is. That's where the subject of the image usually resides and artists typically just service that. Which is why James White's solo show, Celscapes, is such a breath of fresh air. All the work has a subject, of course, but it's more about the environment and setting than one particular central focus.

Celscapes opens Friday August 29 at the Bottleneck Gallery, at 60 Broadway in Brooklyn, NY with a reception from 7-10 p.m. It closes September 10. Below, check out a nice cross section of the James White Celscapes exhibit including pieces from Guardians of the Galaxy, The Shawshank Redemption, No Country for Old Men, Predator, The Iron Giant, He-Man, Scooby-Doo and many others.

Anything that doesn't sell on opening night will go on sale Saturday, August 30 at 12 p.m. EST at Bottleneckgallery.com.

Here's a quote from White about the show -

Being a child of the 1980s, Saturday mornings were spent in front of the television with a bowl of cereal watching all of my favourite cartoons. What always struck me about those classic shows, such as Spider-man, Masters of the Universe, Scooby-Doo and the Superfriends were the beautifully hand-painted backgrounds. Sadly, that form of animation has faded away. CELSCAPES is a celebration of those classic painted backgrounds, depicting scenes from films, television and cartoons.

White's style is very simple, but not all of these are instantly recognizable. Most of them take a second or two to find the character in there. And even if the character is more prominent, they're masked by the environment around them. It's a nice way to pay homage to these pop culture classics in way that's a little more uncommon. What do you think of the James White Celscapes pieces?