DEMETRIE KABBAZ

 

Demetrie Kabbaz is well known for his highly stylized acrylic portraits of pop culture and silver screen legends. His paintings express a reverence for his subjects, transforming them into mythological icons.

Kabbaz’s paintings, done in a remarkable mixture of colors and intensities, are tremendously authentic and realistic, suggesting the emotion of a bygone era no longer found today. Kabbaz focuses on celebrity overexposure. His subjects range from Josephine Baker to James Dean, from Maria Callas to Jim Morrison, including Georgia O’Keefe, Andy Warhol, Mark Twain and scores of Hollywood deities.

He has become most famous for his ongoing series of Marilyn Monroe paintings. For over three decades Demetrie Kabbaz has celebrated the life and times of Marilyn Monroe in his paintings. Born in 1944 and a child of the 50’s, Kabbaz’s earliest memories of her influence on him and his work began at the age of ten, after seeing ‘The Seven Year Itch.’

Since that time Kabbaz admits that she has been his greatest source of inspiration. In 1972, his first one-man exhibit in San Francisco was appropriately called, ‘The Marilyn Monroe Birthday Show.’

A native of St. Louis, Missouri, Kabbaz has lived and worked in San Francisco, Kansas City, New York City, Santa Fe, Los Angeles and now resides in his hometown of St. Louis. His work has been displayed in The San Francisco Museum of Art, The Chicago Art Institute and The Berlin Film Festival, as well as numerous galleries, theatres and private collections throughout the United States and Europe, including this year's (2006) Whitney Museum Biennial "Day for Night".