Glyn
from Aberystwyth's ingenious portrait of James Gandolfini, star
of The Sopranos and The Mexican, examines the enigma of 'The Weapon'.
Is it a cunningly depicted phallic symbol, distanced from the hand by the
subject's own fear of his sexuality, or is it just a badly drawn gun, calling
into question our deepest beliefs about the nature of Art?
An
image filled with energy and anger is executed in a rash, even psychotic style
in Jack from Norwich's interpretation of cheerful TV Gardener Alan Titchmarsh.
In
answer to the question posed by his 'James Gandolfini', Glyn gives us his
Russell Crowe, again tantalising us with an ambivalent image of what could
be either a film star, or a drunken Aussie bent on threatening BAFTA producers
with a damn good kicking.
John
from North Carolina's bold portrait of Bush is astonishing in its complexity,
using phallic and colour symbolism to counterbalance the innovative idea of
drawing the subject from the rear.
The iconic missile becomes both phallus and anus, giving an ironic dual interpretation
of what Bush is doing to the planet beneath him.
'Who
is Claire Danes?' Glyn (a Welsh Constructivist) asks this question
with this very face. The phrase is of course an anagram of 'I show cranial
seed' in that the creation of that very question from the interaction of image
and eye plants a seed in our thoughts which germinates and develops into the
question 'Do I Care?',
Not enough of us ask that of ouselves on a regular basis.
Big
Gay Al from Florida has sent me this poignant image of Liberace, who sparkled
a lot and played the piano.
Its iconic solidity transforms the representation into a reverential image,
befitting one of the Patron Saints of Gay Culture.
Lou
from Texas takes as his subject Celebrity itself and in combining the Hollywood
Machine with Eternal Youth has come up with Robopup. Had Frankenstein
been a Gay LA Dog-Groomer-to-the-Stars with a secret laboratory, this is what
he would have made.
Treading
new and controversial ground is Jolene from Edinburgh, whose 'Whitney Houston'
is 'both a study in semiotics and a reaction to the americocentric
control of female body-shape issues.'
It's certainly a piece which works on many levels, several of them inaccessible.
