I’ve been meaning to post about Wayne White since the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival went down here in Durham in the spring.  I got a chance to catch the biographical film about White’s life, “Beauty Is Embarassing,” and it was incredible.

Wayne White is a subversive illustrator, art director, sculptor, animator, just-the-right-amount of crazy folk artist.

For those of you out there who don’t realize that you already know who Wayne White is, here are a few images to jog your memory.  Wayne is the creative genius behind all of this (warning: if you’re a child of the 80′s, you may have some visceral reactions):

Pee Wee’s Playhouse – Wayne was part of the small team that designed and built all the crazy shit on Pee Wee’s set

Beekman’s World – Never did get into this one, but still full of insane, glorious 80′s maximalist imagery.

Smashing Pumpkins “Tonight, Tonight” video – Ah, the good old days, when MTV played music videos.

And Peter Gabriel’s acid dream video for “Big Time”

But what I didn’t know about Wayne until I saw the documentary about him, was that he’s also an extremely talented, classically trained painter with a bone to pick and a dirty mouth.  His word paintings (typically painted on top of crappy antique store paintings) are what put him on the radar, or in some cases, in the crosshairs, of the fine art world.

He also plays the banjo, sculpts massive installations, and dresses up with a giant LBJ head and goes galavanting around town.  The documentary, Beauty Is Embarassing, is raising money through Kickstarter to do an independent distribution.  I’d highly encourage you to kick them a few bucks, and if there’s a screening in your area, go see it.