Murder In Modern Homes
The sadistic hairdresser has played a central role in my art since my beauty school days in the early 1980s. I first performed Electric Chaircut in 1989, inhabiting the role of the sadistic hairdresser as I bound and gagged my victims before chopping their hair with amplified scissors. The sadistic hairdresser ? in a starring role in my own horror film ? returns as a focal point for my latest series of paintings. The horror films of the 1960s and 70s have inspired much of my visual work over the last decade. So, it seemed fitting that to celebrate a friend?s 40th birthday we mark the occasion by dressing in character to shoot our own horror movie. We already had the perfect setting: the newly-restored Richard Neutra contemporary home of mutual friends. The plot is simple: A sadistic hairdresser named A Vital Assasoon doses the director, takes over the production, makes the director lose his mind and murders the leading actress. While this collection of paintings hints at the film?s larger narrative and its set of iconic characters, each portrait can stand alone as touchstones of a camp cinematic genre.
