Film stars showcased as part of new art exhibition at Gavlak gallery in Palm Beach

A new art exhibition at Gavlak Palm Beach documents the queer experience of New York City-based artist Andrew Brischler through the lens of popular culture.

"Self Portraits," which runs through Dec. 17, features nine hand-drawn, large-scale portraits of film stars such as Sigourney Weaver, Jamie Lee Curtis and Milla Jovovich in character for their films "Alien," "Halloween" and "The Fifth Element," respectively.

Brischler, a voracious consumer of films, brings the characters from screen to studio in his portraits, projecting himself onto each of his subjects as refractions of his own identity.

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"I have, at one time or another, felt such identification with a character that they've felt like a surrogate for my own life," he told the Daily News.

"Self Portraits" is among a series of works created by Brischler that are drawn from popular culture but filtered through his worldview.

Among his well-known series of works are "Monster," "Telepathy," "Lonely Planet" and "Punk & Faggotry."

Like he did with those works, Brischler created "Self Portraits" by using water-medium paint, colored pencil, and graphite on paper mounted to panels.

Color plays a central role in each portrait.

In Brischler's portrait of Weaver from her 1979 movie "Alien," the actress is bathed in green. Curtis, from 1978's "Halloween," is saturated in gray, while Jovovich, from 1997's "The Fifth Element," is enveloped in cadmium yellow. Other portraits are painted with backgrounds of red, blue and orange.

"The color choice of each piece is often formal, meaning that while composing a body of work for a show, I often think about what colors work symbiotically with one another," Brischler said. "The color choice in the 'Self Portraits'is somewhat more deliberate, because I've tried to imbue each with a color related to the character and the movie's production design as a whole."

The cinematography of "Alien" is dark and brooding, "and the lime green evokes an extraterrestrial dread. 'Scarface,' the film from which Michelle Pfeiffer's portrait is based, is a painful mixture of '80s glamour and seedy Miami sleaze, so purple felt like the right choice," the artist said.

The portrait of Pfeiffer will be displayed at the Art Basel show in Miami Beach, which begins Dec. 8.

The paintings range in price from $10,000 to $30,000, said Irina Rothenberg, a Gavlak Palm Beach gallery associate.

Other portraits in the exhibition include characters played by actresses Jennifer Connelly, Margot Robbie, Marilyn Monroe, Frances McDormand, Laura Dern and Uma Thurman.

Gavlak, with locations in Palm Beach and Los Angeles, was founded in 2005 by Sarah Gavlak. The gallery currently represents 20 national and international artists, according to its website, and maintains a focus on women, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+ artists.

Gavlak Palm Beach, at 340 Royal Poinciana Way in the Royal Poinciana Plaza, is open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. Admission is free.

The gallery will host its next exhibit, "Deborah Brown: Street Smarts," beginning Dec. 21.

For more information, visit gavlakgallery.com or call 561-833-0583.

Jodie Wagner is a journalist at the Palm Beach Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach her at jwagner@pbdailynews.com. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Film stars at center of new art exhibition at Gavlak Palm Beach gallery