| |
 |
Burly
California artist best known for his rich, layered, allegorical
and often satirical surfing-themed oil paintings, produced
in the style of Rembrandt and Caravaggio. Ancell was born
and raised in Santa Monica and began surfing at age nine.
He moved to China in 1985 and briefly taught Western culture at the Beijing Institute of Science and Technology. Two years later, the Chinese government expelled him as a "cultural pollutant," and he moved to San Francisco. "Better Living Through Medication" (1996) is typical of Ancell's work, showing a nude surfer floating between a skeleton and a tiny Prozac-bearing angel. For "Surf Trip," a 200 surf-art exhibition at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, Ancell grouped together 25 full-sized polyurethane huyla dancer automatons, some wielding assault rifles and hand grenades.
"Here's the dashboard hula doll except now she's got guns and she's been drinking and she's pissed off." As a scenery painter in Hollywood, Ancell worked on "Sphere," "What Dreams May Come," and "The Phantom Menace," among other movies.
|
|
|
|
