Angelyne: ICANDY
Melrose Botanical Garden, Los Angeles, CA
January 4 - February 1, 2025
"ICANDY" is a series of food-art-photography portraits by the one and only, iconic Angelyne. Curated by Lizzie Klein & Sophie Appel.
With the remains of her meals at various Los Angeles restaurants, Angelyne transforms food scraps into portraits of people, and oftentimes celebrities on her plate by channelling their spirit. Angelyne crafts intricate, highly detailed likenesses within these portraits, capturing their essence through subtle gestures, eye expressions, and a transcendental energy that seems to come alive on the plate. Her portrait of ET made from leftover beans, or Audrey Hepburn made of red cabbage, evoke a mystical quality, leaving you able to hear the sounds of the voices of those who she has immortalized. Each print is carefully hand painted and signed in glitter, rendering each photograph an original and unique work.
Angelyne is a pop culture icon best known for her image plastered on upwards of 200 billboards across the Los Angeles landscape since the 1980s, where her platinum blonde hair, pink Corvette, and enigmatic persona made her an instant sex symbol and pioneer of modern celebrity culture. As singer, actress, model, poet, and visual artist, she first gained prominence with her debut billboard in 1984. She began her career in the band Baby Blue before embarking on a solo music career, turning out dreamy, breathy, ethereal records, singles and EP's featuring songs of her life's poetry with titles like "Sex Goddess" and "Kiss Me L.A.' Angelyne has appeared in several films, often playing versions of herself, including Earth Girls Are Easy (1988), The Last Slumber Party (1988), and To Die For (1995), and in music videos like Moby's "We Are All Made of Stars" (2002) and The Avalanches' "Running Red Lights" (2020). In addition to her entertainment career, she has exhibited her paintings at galleries such as Plume Gallery, MODA Hollywood, as well as others. She is the honorary mayor of West Hollywood.