New Art Form Rocks Hollywood!

“Rock Star Rapture” by Regina Paris Photo Arts

Every year, millions of photographs are taken of our favorite rock ‘n roll stars. Much of the photography makes its way to newspapers, magazines, websites and other forms of media. Some of the photography becomes inspiration for artwork, in the form of digital prints, silk screening and gel prints.

Regina Paris, well-known celebrity photographer whose photography has graced the pages of major magazines and newspapers such as the Los Angeles Times, is the forerunner of a new art form that is beginning to take celebrity photography to a new level. Paris’ Hollywood company Paris PhotoArts digitally alters celebrity photography using a four-color process. The “photoarts” are subsequently printed on fine canvas using expensive high-resolution large format printers that can print photoarts the height of a human being.

“Photoarts will bring a new level of collectibility to celebrity memorabilia, as the photoarts, unlike posters or trinkets, are themselves an investment in Fine Art. They can only go up in value.” Accordingly, photoarts are set in limited editions, such as with lithographic series of paintings, and numbered, thereby becoming highly collectible. Furthermore, unlike lithographs which can rip and are damaged easily through age, photoarts are printed on canvas and may last several hundred years — or at least until the next Renaissance.

Among her greatest work is a photograph of Melissa Etheridge that Paris shot at the Human Rights Campaign Equality Rocks concert in 2000. This photograph, which has appeared in numerous journals, reveals a side of Etheridge that even Paris could not take her eyes away from. “The original photograph shows Melissa performing at the pinnacle of her career, in front of the most important audience of her life. She shone brightly that night, and I created the photoart to emphasize the intense and epic emotions she was feeling at that moment in time.” Paris created two in this series, one of which is at the Entertainment Galleries and the other for auction. For more information on viewing Paris’ creation, one can contact Paris at parisinhollywood@aol.com.