Celebrity mug shots

Rachel Schmeidlerร‚ย’s mug shot portraits, clockwise from top left, Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Jane Fonda and Jimi Hendrix. (Rachel Schmeidlers)

By Christine N. Ziemba Special to the Times

March 16, 2008
WHEN celebs get popped for DUIs or other criminal infractions, their stylists usually can't prep them for this close-up: the police mug shot. But L.A.-based artist Rachel Schmeidler is trying her best to make the unglamorous head shots of A- and B-listers such as Mel Gibson, Jane Fonda, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan a little less kitschy and more collectible through her art series, "Hollywood Most Wanted."

Schmeidler paints over the police portraiture to create fine-art prints on paper and canvas, resulting in Pop Art-ish odes to Hollywood's sordid side. It's safe to say that none of Schmeidler's subjects is smiling quite as much as Andy Warhol's Marilyns did.

Some of the works are on display at the ArcLight in Sherman Oaks; her entire collection can be found online at www.hollywoodmostwanted.com.

Warhol would probably be quite pleased that Schmeidler carries on where he left off, dissecting the media, law and pop culture, though we doubt that talent would hang out at her Factory -- by choice, anyway.