Emma Gray is an artist and writer who lives and works in Los Angeles. She is the West Coast Editor for ArtReview Magazine and writes the LA Confidential column for Artnet.com.
Has Los Angeles-based artist Douglas Green ever been abducted by aliens? The cartoon–like drawings from his Rheology (Agent Once 000111) series are so detailed with syringes, amputations and operation table nightmares, one wonders what exactly Green digests before he goes to sleep at night. Or perhaps he’s been hanging out too much with painter Daniel Hesidence? It is fitting then, that Green lives in Southern California, as he is very much under the spell of Hollywood sci-fi and horror movies—albeit with a transgender twist. The stills from his videos recall snapshots from films like Rosemary’s Baby, (though this Rosemary is definitely a Rolfe), Psycho and Blair Witch Project. The problem with Green’s black and white stills with men dressed up as women screaming, aghast and agape is that they look as sexual as they do terrifying.
The theme is echoed in the work The Widow of the Web where we find Green scrambling around virtually naked in webbed plastic pallet wrap strung across the gallery as a kind of cellophane jungle gym. Not only does it looks like a great deal of fun, but it’s further enhanced by the artist's plastica guise: he's done up in the style of Barbie’s arm candy Ken—replete with caked on foundation and lipstick. A transgender Arachnid ensnaring viewers in her plastic web?
Only after seeing the work Now Hiding Under Benches and Roots do you get a real sense of how committed this artist is to the dark underbelly of the human psyche. Nothing about these disturbing, compelling images of bodies wrapped in duct-tape positioned beneath single low wattage light bulbs, elicits any notion of fun or horror schlock—except perhaps the title.
Hi Emma, this thing looks wonderful and I understand your extraterrestrial comments from the other night. Good stuff in there. I wonder if the Uber machine will ask us to be Friends now... Cheers, SND
