THE CELEBRITY + THE FAN + THE REMOTE BOND
“The celebrity is a part of the fan audiences everyday life and as remote as imaginable. The celebrity is thus both intimate and distant.”[1]
My work looks at ideas surrounding the phenomenon of celebrity, and the response of the fan within this cultural discourse. I create work focusing on my idol: Dave McPherson.
I repetitively portray Dave through drawing to give the sense of the “obsessive fan”. Although each drawing is completed separately, it is when the drawings are all viewed together that they speak of this obsessive nature. The reference to traditional drawing techniques aims to suggest the intimacy of the relationship of fan and celebrity, similar to the ideology behind the paintings of Elizabeth Peyton, and of the teenage fan in their bedroom. The binding element of the work is Dave's music: creating an equation of three elements: Dave (the celebrity), me (the fan) and his music (the remote bond). The drawings then become an attempt-by the fan-to reduce the metaphorical and literal distance discussed by Nayar, while also trying to imply the construction of intimacy between the fan and idol.
[1] Nayar, Pramod K. Seeing Stars: 2009; 159
