Musician. Lover. Artiste'.

Most of you would probably pidgeon-hole Paul Stanley of KISS as just another
tight-pantsed boob who shreiks his ham-fisted, dopey anthems to the low-browed throngs. How sad that your perceptions are so narrow. This man is an artist. AN ARTIST. Sure, his music has not evolved one whit since the mid-70's. And it may seem as if his primary goals in life are to bang groupies and sell anything that a KISS logo can fit on, such as condoms, coffins, credit cards, lunchboxes, t-shirts, dolls, posters, keychains, leather jackets, and even KISS coffee (most likely spelled "Koffee").

But this man understands that one must gaze into the abyss to truly understand oneself. That sturm und drang are necessary components to a life devoted to the examination of issues that cause lesser men to flinch. And that by defacing some innocent canvases by shitting out some pigment on them and calling them paintings, you might get a chance to bang a new kind of groupie. Specifically, art groupies.

And thus, we have a series of paintings by Mr. Stanley, brought to us by the Celebrity Fine Art Gallery.

It's not so much the subject matter that gives me a headache, although all the pieces are certainly moronically conceived. And it's not the fact that he's famous. There are celebrity artists that are presumably serious and actually good...Ron Wood of the Rolling Stones, Peter Falk, and Martin Mull come to mind.



It's the technique. Each of these couldn't have taken more than an hour to complete. I mean, in the 70's, Kiss had cool album covers. Nicely painted images of the band members cavorting in fire-strewn, post-apocalyptic landscapes ("Destroyer") or surrounded by hordes of tank-topped women in mime make-up ("Love Gun")...you know, nice, tasteful stuff. OK, it wasn't tasteful...it was dumb. But it was all pretty well-painted. But this is just crap even a mother wouldn't buy. Which means a hard-core KISS fan all jacked up on Kiss Koffee probably would.

You can view the horror in its entirety
here.