There's highbrow art, there's lowbrow art and then there's just Photoshopping a hillbilly's eyebrow onto Brangelina's head. Like a modern day Picasso armed with CS5, photographer Danny Evans takes famous people's faces and "deconstructs" them. The result isn't exactly Cubist but it's definitely still ugly.
First starting out as
a joke on Facebook in 2009, Evans'
Planet Hiltron photo album has kinda gone crazy recently. It's not hard to see why: some of his finest work is scarily accurate. Notable examples include an almost-too-soon Britney, Oprah as a lovable/scary old Southern Grandma, and an awesome Jay-B (are we calling them that yet?) complete with nerd glasses and a home perm.
Evans says his work is all about showing celebs "in a new light" almost "as if they were never famous". As if Brad Pitt was his brother Doug give or take 20 pounds and a chubby trailer park wife called Angie. Depressingly, some celebs look as beautiful as ever, such as Gwyneth in a blonde pubic hair wig: a sad reminder that Photoshop simply didn't create us all equal.
Those of us wanting to intellectualise
Planet Hiltron could see it as the ying to the yang of celebrity-culture. In the words of a brainy dude: "for every action there is a reaction". For every celebrity that has her arse cellulite wiped off with the Smudge tool, there is a legend like Evans willing to put some bleach bangs on her.