Artist Kim MacConnel hates clowns. He hates litter, too. To reconcile his dislikes, MacConnel created disfigured clowns from trash as part of his artwork. Artist Brian Dick loves to mimic both cheap figurines and Hollywood figures. He photographs himself while attempting to recreate the facial expressions of figures such as Travel Lodge’s mascot Sleepy Bear or celebrities such as Julia Roberts and Mel Gibson.

The current exhibition Discombobulated at L Street Fine Art at the Omni Hotel in downtown San Diego (the L Street Fine Art gallery is an entity of the Omni Hotel that is operated as a municipal gallery space) features both Mr. MacConnel and Mr. Dick—two winners of the third annual San Diego Arts Prize. The art prize is given to an established artist, who then recommends an emerging artist; then both are featured in a two-person exhibition, and each is awarded a cash prize. Presented through the San Diego Visual Arts Network, the award is produced through the efforts of Joan Seifried, Ann Berchtold, and Patricia Frischer, who are known together as The Art Girls.

All the works in this exhibit by Mr. MacConnel are from his 1994 series Age of Plastic, which combines clowns made of trash together with paintings. These works use vividly painted diamond and ovoid motifs as backgrounds that perpetuate circus themes for the clowns. The clowns were made from plastics and other litter that MacConnel had collected from the beach. In one work, “PIGGY (After Warhol),” an old, dirty green Hy-pro brand bottle makes up the head of one clown whose body is an upside-down crushed Big-Gulp cup. MacConnel affixed bottle caps for buttons and attached black rubber tubing to create the little figure’s arms. Two other clowns, one made from a used can of Bar-B-Q Pringles and the other made from an old Flex shampoo bottle, are combined with a blue, green, magenta, yellow, and white painted background. The painted ground affects a casual quality with imprecise shapes and occasional drips. Together, the clowns effectively read as tragic figures who evoke a sad poignancy, akin to Picasso’s Rose Period harlequin paintings.

Brian Dick; "Staring at

Al Roker until our Face

Muscles Match; Until it

Feels Right," 2009.

^{Courtesy: Luis De Jesus}

Seminal Projects and the artist.

Brian Dick’s artwork “Knick-Knack Mimicry” (2009) features ten photographic framed self-portraits, each teamed with the cheap figurine that inspired it. He documented his own attempt to match the facial expressions of knick-knacks, such as a four-inch Santa, a poodle vase, and the aforementioned Sleepy Bear, a broken ceramic that has been callously repaired with a wide swath of tan masking tape. The artist’s attempts at impersonating these knick-knacks’ expressions are quite successful and laugh-out-loud funny. As Sleepy Bear, Mr. Dick’s tired, hang-dog eyes and silly grin are a perfect imitation, as are his facial impersonations of a ceramic clown driving a car. This enjoyably absurd quest to impersonate knick-knacks is important to comprehending the artist’s other attempts to impersonate celebrity images.

When Mr. Dick photographs himself attempting to match the facial expressions of celebrities, his attempts to emulate movie stars such as George Clooney could be misinterpreted easily as narcissistic. In Discombobulated, Mr. Dick includes six works from the series Muscle Mimicry (Select photos from Us Magazine, People magazine, and the Star (2009). He photographs himself matching expressions of such celebrities as Justin Timberlake, Tom Cruise, and Kenny Kingston—who? Kingston is an entertainer billed as “America’s Greatest Psychic.” Brian Dick is not being narcissistic but is mocking celebrity when he matches expressions with the famous as well as the infamous. When posing in the guise of Tom Cruise or Julia Roberts, the artist is diminishing their star quality a peg or two because of Mr. Dick’s other work mimicking the knick-knacks—the celebrities become interchangeable and indistinguishable from the knick-knacks. The same thing occurs when he poses in the guise of one of the Olsen Twins. The title confirms the artist’s intention when it states either “Mary Kate or Ashley Olsen.” The mimicking pose that can be read as either twin sister supremely condemns and reduces the status of both child stars by making them interchangeable. The artist’s work is wickedly fun because each silly self-portrait of the artist in effect reinforces an unflattering likeness of celebrity.

Discombobulated runs through July 20^th, 2009. The gallery is located at 628 L Street (across the street from the lobby of the Omni Hotel) and hours are Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10AM to 5PM.