Art With a ‘60s Bent for the Average Joe

Shag, currently the subject of a one-man show at the La Luz de Jesus Gallery in Los Feliz, has emerged as a leading conjurer of neo-swingers’ fever dreams.

The Orange County artist’s canvasses blossom with blowfish lamps and monophonic hi-fis, cocktail shakers and dry martinis, piano bars, Vegas mobsters and Polynesian gods. He has brought Captain Morgan and the Dubonnet Monsieur to the table for “Dean Martin’s Last Supper,” and a ‘60s sex kitten with a smoking gun to the bedroom of a bathrobed blue cockroach for “Franz Kafka, Swinger.”

He has sought major inspiration from tiki bars and thrift stores, ancient album covers and his own household furniture. The artist displays a particular flair in the many coiffures he has lavished upon his female subjects.

“Originally, every woman I used to paint had a bubble haircut,” Shag, 35, says. “Then I went to a bouffant, and then I realized I just kept repeating myself over and over. So when I watched an old movie, if I saw a hairstyle I thought I could use, I would sketch it. Audrey Hepburn in ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’--you see a lot of that.”

Although he dates his own preoccupation with lounge culture before the swingers craze, Shag is no purist. An Arne Jacobsen egg chair he recently purchased may appear in one of his paintings. And even though he conceived the cover for one of exotica master Les Baxter’s CD re-releases, his enthusiasm has limits.

“The Les Baxter, the Martin Denny stuff--it bores me,” he says. “Just getting to do the album cover was neat. People are probably going to be aghast when I say I’m bored by Les Baxter, Martin Denny, Arthur Lyman. But I move more toward soundtracks.”

Shag has similarly parted company with the current ultra-lounge retail orthodoxy. While modernist boutiques on Beverly Boulevard now charge a king’s ransom for a ‘60s molded plastic divan, while the vintage clothing store index for a porkpie hat approaches its weight in gold, Shag has hesitated to similarly inflate prices on his own product.

His smaller works begin in the $450 range, and even his larger visions do not usually top $2,000, the result being that all but three paintings in his current show were sold before the opening, and the two that weren’t went on opening night.

“It leads me to believe that prices are too low,” Shag says. “But I don’t want prices to be bumped up so high that the common man can’t afford one.”