British art star and celebrated portrait artist, JONATHAN YEO, has unveiled his latest work at a very unusual locale, namely the LAZARIDES GALLERY, also known as the home of Banksy. Why would an A-list figurative painter in the old master tradition be exhibiting at the city’s hottest modern art outlet where technique is often takes a backseat to shock value? It seems that last year Yeo was commissioned by the Bush administration to complete a portrait of our fearless leader, (doubtlessly after Bushie spotted Yeo’s acclaimed image of Tony Blair), but told shortly thereafter that the job was nixed. Instead of scrapping the piece, Yeo decided to move ahead with the project, but as a collage of porn snippets instead (sorry, no Condi Rice or Jenna Bush shots in there). Diehard Bushwackers can purchase a limited edition print of the piece at the gallery’s website (no price is given, an ominous sign if there ever was one), and there’s no word yet if a complementary copy will be sent to Washington. We think the whloe thing woulda been cooler if it was made up of Kim Jong Ill snippets instead…

Bushie gets an earful of Paris…

And a mouthful of sin…

Self-portrait of the artist as a young man. No genitalia included…

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 29th, 2007 at 2:38 pm and is filed under News, Openings, art. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.