Barbie: Mark Gleberzon’s crafty new take on the pop culture icon

Astronaut. Doctor. Engineer. Chief. A game show host and a parachutist. According to Mattel, Barbara Millicent Roberts has pursued more than 200 careers over the past 64 years. But when it comes to fine art, this ambitious girl, better known as Barbie, has always been more of a dilettante with her easel and potter’s wheel.

Even without any recognizable talent, Barbie has made her mark on the art world, serving as the main muse.

Most famously, in what would become his final painting, Andy Warhol captured her blonde likeness and blank smile in his signature pop art style. To be fair, Warhol’s 1986 portrayal wasn’t actually of the doll: She was a stand-in for trendy jewelry artist BillyBoy*, who owned more than 11,000 Barbies. Embracing camp and glamour, BillyBoy* was the first designer to be commissioned to create his own models for Mattel: there was the sleek and chic 1985 ‘Le Nouveau Theater De La Mode’, which sported a mini version of BillyBoy*’s luxury necklace with gold chain . In 1986, the high-fashion ‘Feelin’ Groovy Barbie’ looked like she tiptoeed off the set of a Janet Jackson video with her chic dark sunglasses, black nail polish and dazzling shoulder pads.

Like Warhol, Toronto mixed media artist Mark Jeremy Gleberzon didn’t see his Barbie portrait series in 2015 as an attempt to capture the doll’s likeness.

A fixture at art fairs and galleries, many of Gleberzon’s color-soaked textual paintings and mixed-media works over the past three decades are continuous studies of a single object, such as a Louis-style chair inherited from his parents at home and a dress form that reminded him of his mother. Much of his art pays homage to the much-loved female figures in his life, most notably his mother and his grandmother, who was also a painter.

As a 1970s kid, Gleberzon grew up around all the well-known pop culture icons, but he remembers not playing much with the toys of the era. But as he began to examine his art practice more closely, he realized that some pop influences had intruded. After his first visit to Montreal’s Barbie Expo, where he spent six hours studying the more than 1,000 dolls on display in the underground exhibit, he made a connection between the style of the doll and his grandmother.

“When I look at pictures of her and her friends in the early ’60s, she certainly didn’t look like a Barbie,” he says. “But people would dress themselves up with the bullet bras and the girdles even just to go shopping.”

Shot largely against a white backdrop, Gleberzon began capturing Barbies of this era with their sultry eyes and Cupid’s bow lips. He took some photos during that first visit to Barbie Expo, a must-see for any enthusiast (although currently closed for renovation). Recognizing that Barbie’s lean figure has been criticized for upholding impossible physical ideals, Gleberzon’s portraits feature headshots revealing only her giraffe-like neck.

“You really have no idea what her body is like this way,” he said. “I think it is important that the story is mainly told with her face. Barbie has always held up a mirror for the past few decades, or she has held up a mirror to what is going on in current trends and pop culture.”

One of Gleberzon’s earliest photographs, ‘Rose’, came about as a happy coincidence. While shooting, he did not realize that his camera was not set up properly. After adjusting the blur, Barbie’s blonde locks, peacock blue eyeshadow, and fuchsia lips were still instantly recognizable despite the blur. Some people find the series disturbing, but it has become some of his most popular works.

“I reinterpreted it as the idea that it’s a mirage of memories,” he said. “It’s the idea that when we try to remember someone from our past, we’ll remember the basic shapes and colors, but the fine details are always missing.”

In addition to his classic Barbie portraits, Gleberzon added a Marie Antoinette-style photo series to the roster featuring cotton candy pink hair and a sassy “Let them eat cake!” tattooed where her collarbone would be if she really had a skeleton.

“Sugar’s Daddy” Ken also came into the mix, sporting steel blue eyes and his own chest patterned with tattoos referencing mythology and elements of doll history. Using sketches and stock photos, Gleberzon collaborated with a digital artist to create the tattoo designs that appear on his hairless plastic chest.

For those who want something a little edgier, here are some shimmering Barbie-on-Barbie nudes enjoying a fun night out.

Gleberzon currently sells his paintings, prints and custom work through his website, markgleberzon. com, but you can find his Barbie portraits in the Collective 131 gallery on the ground floor of the Holt Renfrew Center until the end of July. Like many of us, he’s hopeful that the Barbie movie hits the right note of “tongue firmly in cheek” that the early trailers promise. But does it mean more interest in his photos?

“It’s like any series an artist does. We will always find an ebb and flow in terms of how it is embraced. I certainly hope this touches on something and evokes that sense of nostalgia and that people want the embodiment of something that reminds them of their childhood,” Gleberzon said.

“I hope my art will play into that and be the epitome of memories.”

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