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"On the Verge of Domestication" by Los Angeles-based artist Lauren-Mendelsohn-Bass feels uniquely, passionately a part of L.A., itself. Perhaps that focus is due to the strong noir style of her figurative paintings. Film noir is deeply embedded in the culture of the City of Angels, and her art, with its noir narrative focus, is equally emblematic of the artist’s hometown. Guilty pleasures are portrayed in a vibrant world of bold imagery. Her work delves into society’s complex emotions around what we desire, and more specifically, the mass marketed idea of desirability in lifestyle, perception, physical characteristics, conspicuous consumption and more. Luscious color and alluring imagery is expertly depicted with great detail in order to seduce the senses. The artist wields realism as a means to expose the lack of reality in socially constructed norms. Taking a cue from the psychological drama of Film Noir, Lauren Mendelsohn-Bass weaves her own narrative through the painted word. Her emotional thrillers are stylistic and keen in plot lines that reveal the subtext of life. Her characters are staged in a series of montages, as form and gesture expose the mind’s inner turmoil of daily existence.

Lauren Mendelsohn-Bass is a Los Angeles born painter who received her Bachelor of Arts at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her work takes the viewer on a journey through the word of superficial reality where artificially alluring and nostalgically innocent context marks darker thought, ideas and actions. Playing on the visual tropes of mass marketing and vintage advertisements, her work explores the ways reality is obscured when presented as ostensibly attractive. As popular culture navigates an era of “fake news”, social media, and alternative facts, nothing is as it seems. Her paintings examine today’s culture where truth is fluid; ideas issues and events are routinely reframed to reinforce brand, and even daily life is depicted in a series of perfectly posed, edited and filtered images on social media.

On the Verge of Domestication evokes a classic Film Noir feel and its emotive German Expressionist roots. Mixing pop imagery and classic noir iconography, the viewer is drawn into an enticing sugar coated, world, only to find all is not as sweet as it appears. The work appeals to a nostalgic longing for an idealized mechanism to identify villain and hero. In the classic films it was so easy, but careful branding and cultivation of image has made it harder to see the core characteristics of public figures, products and events. Through juxtapositions of symbolic and stylized iconic imagery with high emotional content, the book’s paintings maintain a sense of dramatic tension. The mystery and drama of noir is retained while swapping the dark urban landscape of Hollywood classic films for bright candy colors and a façade of beautiful perfection.

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