BRUCE HELANDER

Florida Artists Hall of Famer Bruce Helander will debut his new collection of colorful collages and paintings from his “Billboard Series” that explores the aesthetic tradition of American billboard imagery and its artistic communicative purpose. Curated by celebrated British art critic Anthony Haden-Guest, Helander’s special exhibit at the Paul Fisher Gallery will feature numerous captivating works that incorporate the tradition of outdoor advertisement depictions, which originally were hand-painted by commercial artists who stood precariously on scaffolding while holding a bucket of paint in one hand and a brush in the other.

In the image adjacent to this page, incorporating an original collage on museum board design, Helander meticulously has transferred and painted on canvas a graphic of sign painters taken from a vintage Forbes Magazine cover (circa 1940) and added imagery from his appropriation of Picasso masterworks. Helander had a special introduction to sign painting as a youth in his family’s grocery store, where while he stocked shelves, he often observed billboard painters laboring across the street. In this layout, two workers in white overalls diligently “build” a complicated arrangement from a maquette held by a painter as a guideline for the composition. The unfinished background is a cubist inspired abstract pattern that continues from the top to the bottom as the rope scaffolding is lowered or raised, depending on the area to be painted. The configuration is spatially enhanced further by the three-dimensional juxtaposition of the giant outdoor billboard high above a commercial building in Times Square.

Other works in the exhibit include “Pleasure Bound,” a refurbished billboard painting of a family traveling in a classic convertible car to a drive-in movie, featuring “Palm Beach or Bust!” stenciled on the rear bumper. Other works on view commemorate the American tradition of artists such as Norman Rockwell and Salvador Dali who also created advertising imagery.

PRESENTED BY PAUL FISHER GALLERY