Posted on Advocate.com June 06, 2011 05:50:00 PM ET
Androgyne Dreams
Artist Margo Selski celebrates her preteen son's androgyny in an empowering new series of paintings that bring him one step closer to his idol, Lady Gaga.
By Brandon Voss
http://www.advocate.com/Arts_and_Entertainment/Art/Androgyne_Dreams/ (http://www.advocate.com/Arts_and_Entertainment/Art/Androgyne_Dreams/)
What's a mother to do when her 12-year-old son has a passion for long hair and lovely dresses? If she's surrealist artist Margo Selski, she lets him pose as the subject of her fantastical paintings in the exhibition "Hitherto and Henceforth," which runs through June 30 at West Hollywood's Glass Garage Fine Art Gallery. Also painting an unpleasant picture of her son Theo's torment in their small town of Ellensburg, Wash., Selski explains how she always colors on the right side of the line between empowerment and exploitation.
The Advocate: Tell me about the inspiration behind the paintings in "Hitherto and Henceforth" that feature your son Theo.
Margo Selski: This series of paintings was intended as a celebration of balancing between two things. They're neither entirely classical nor entirely contemporary, neither entirely realistic nor entirely fantastical, neither entirely familiar nor entirely alien. That balancing point between old and new, comfortable and uncomfortable, safe and unsafe is what this exhibition is all about. Theo is himself on a balancing point.