The twelve paintings in the exhibition are imaginary film stills based on on a Science Fiction screenplay, titled Regression, developed by Wes Hempel’s uncle in the 1950s. The film was never made and, to Hempel’s knowledge, none of the script survived.
Hempel grew up hearing stories from his uncle about the film concept and was a fascinated. A crew of astronauts travel to an exoplanet with a tropical Earth-like atmosphere and immediately get separated from each other when they set out to explore. Isolated, they start to rapidly grow younger. Wading in the water seems to slow the regression process. It is later revealed that the planet is a sentient life form that is purposefully regressing them as it can only communicate with minds that are free of dishonesty and aggression. By returning the astronauts to innocence, the planet hopes to establish contact. Constructed from memory, these paintings are Hempel’s musings on what the film might have looked like.
There is a playfulness and and absurdity to the paintings. A spaceship hangs over the Hollywood sign next to two dramatically singular palm trees. The figures pose like 1950s film stars in the water while ships loom over their heads and steep cliffs rise behind them. Painted at an intimate scale ranging from 16×16 inches to 20×30 inches, the paintings draw on Hempel’s well-known practice of commenting on assumed narratives of masculinity in art and popular culture and the lack of representation of gay men.
The figures are shirtless and seemingly unaware of the viewer but on a mission. Expressions of concern cross some of their faces while others are lost in thought – a surreal battalion of statuesque young men. Hempel is turning the pop culture trope of half dressed beautiful women on its head and depicting beautiful men in these paintings. With the lost film script as the framework, Hempel uses his immense technical skill to deftly recontextualize the male figure.
Wes Hempel’s paintings forge a provocative dialogue between past and present – asking us to consider the ways in which the dominant narratives depicted in art and pop culture have presented a single viewpoint and lacked significantly in representation.
Wes Hempel was born in El Monte, CA, in 1953. He received his BA from Cal State Northridge in 1985 and his MA from UC Boulder in 1988. He has exhibited extensively throughout the US since 1987 and his paintings are included in numerous private and public collections including the Denver Art Museum, Microsoft Art Collection, and the New Britain Museum of American Art (CT), among others. He lives and work in Colorado.