Groovy baby, yea! Party time, excellent! From Austin Powers, to Wayne’s World, to Shrek, Mike Myers’ comedy has stolen our hearts. And now, as if we didn’t love him enough…he makes art!
George.
By “Edward McTavish”
“I make about a painting a week,” Myers says. “’…My first painting was of my wife, Kelly. My second one was of my dog, George Harrison. And then I got into this Colonel Sanders thing.”
Um…what Colonel Sanders thing?
Well, apparently Mike is obsessed with the face of fried chicken, even though growing up in Canada he didn’t really understand the whole Kentucky colonel thing.
He thought to himself, “Who is the colonel of chicken! As a kid I literally said the words, ‘Why are they militarizing chicken?”
Despite the early confusion, Myers has already paid homage to the mustachioed man several times in his short career:
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On the day that Lucian Freud died, Myers painted his version of a Freud: “The Colonel, Naked, Holding a Palette, Painting Himself.”
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The Colonel with the Pearl Earring (inspired by The Girl with the Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer)
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The Colonel Lisa (as in the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci )
And that’s just to name a few. But if you’re out on the gallery beat seeking a Mike Myers original, look for Edward McTavish instead. That’s the pseudonym he used in a recent humor-based art show he and his friends put on at Fuse Gallery in NYC.
The Colonel. By Edward McTavish, aka Mike Myers.
And don’t pigeonhole ol’ Mikey just yet.
His creative interests are just as diverse as his variety of hilarious characters. Not only has he been busy with a paintbrush, he’s been making movies starring his toddler Spike, like “A Hard Day’s Spike.” He’s been cranking out original songs almost daily on his computer. And I bet you anything he’s dancing around, even if maybe he needs some new moves.
For Myers, this James Franco-esque multidisciplinary experimentation is essential to keeping him engaged and creating new work.
“It connects me to creativity,” he says, “which is, which is to me the greatest gift my family gave me: saying that being an artist is a noble profession. At the end of the day I’m an artist.”
Maybe we will luck out and Myers next blockbuster will be a goof on the art world. In any case…
Contributor