This exceptional watercolor and gouache painting intentionally challenges the flat stiffness of modern illustration, deploying premium archival paper to float a highly curated and satirical vignette based on pop iconography, high fashion, and high-society media. Santelices coordinates precise fine-line ink drawings and fluid translucent pink watercolor washes to build an intimate interior scene where two characters are enveloped by a dream-like cloud of six expressive, stylized celebrity portraits. Punctuated by rich handwritten text blocks at the baseline that gossip on the flickering and shallow nature of fame, this multi-layered matrix functions as a powerful anthropological record of contemporary lifestyle trends.
 
Movies, TV and magazines are constant source of inspiration. Fame, as fleckring and shallow it can be sometimes, is very intriguing to him.
 
Purchase this unique investment-grade watercolor and gouache painting by Manuel Santelices, online directly through the The Art Design Project gallery.