Artist Alex Kelly makes beautiful portraits of comedians
If the 1959 musical Gypsy taught the world anything, it’s that “you gotta get a gimmick.” The show was referring to burlesque, but the same basic principle applies to art. In such a crowded field, artists need something to distinguish their own work from the work of others. Andy Warhol had his soup cans and Brillo boxes. Van Gogh had his haystacks. Georgia O’Keeffe had her anatomically suggestive flowers. And today, Cleveland artist and gallery owner Alex Kelly has his comedians. Funny people are Kelly’s muses, and he’s been making his “Sketched Comedy” drawings available online since 2013. His work is now available for viewing at alex-kelly.com, as well as on Kelly’s Instagram and Twitter accounts. To browse through Kelly’s work is to discover a veritable who’s who of modern American comedy, with notable names drawn from the worlds of stand-up (Natasha Leggero), sketch (Sasheer Zamata), and sitcoms (Aubrey Plaza). The artist’s site contains oil paintings, sketches, and digitally colored images, but the subject matter remains consistent throughout, regardless of medium. Here, for instance, is writer, director, and comedian Judd Apatow rendered in oil: