Lucid Magazine - Hollywoods Most Wanted Art

Hollywood’s Most Wanted artist Rachel Schmeidler has grabbed the edge of the celebrity-gone-wrong sword. Since beginning the series in 2005, this artist has been assured that her work is in demand. Fresh off the set of the latest MTV’s Real World: Los Angeles, the prints are staking fresh territory with their pop-with-an-edge style. The art has landed showings at the ArcLight Cinemas in both Hollywood and Sherman Oaks, as well as galleries in Venice and Los Angeles.

With the help of a paintbrush and a gigantic laser printer, this artist transforms mug shots of some of the most famous people to have ever been arrested. She intensifys them by painting over each silkscreen print with vibrant colors. Each of her prints is one of a kind, handcrafted in her Hollywood studio.

Schmeidler never thought she’d find her niche in celebrity crime. She certainly had to face her own sort of imprisonment growing up as a Jewish girl in Germany, where she endured much harassment and alienation. Her family moved to Philadelphia when she was 12 to escape the trappings of that environment. After graduating with a full scholarship from the same art school as Andy Warhol, Carnegie Mellon, she picked up and came to Los Angeles, where the construction of her eye-catching images came to be.

I moved to LA to be in an environment where people weren’t judged, where things can be very incestuous. Back east, I was told, “If you want to make it as an artist and you’re a woman, you have to be a secretary for 10 years, and then maybe you have a shot.” LA is more embracing of new ideas, entrepreneurial projects; just more open-minded. It isn’t traditional in the sense of what the art world in New York has to offer me. LA was a bigger and better challenge for me to face. Although it was a shock to leave an environment where I had friends, family, and places for my art to show all in one concentrated area. Out here, just to get a coffee, you have to get out and drive. I was very secluded. For a year or two I couldn’t pursue art because I didn’t know myself. I was in shock. I had this overwhelming feeling that I couldn’t contribute.

LA is the media capital of the world. How the world interprets America is through what’s created here. I had to make sense of it all. I was reading more magazines, and I realized that what drives people closer to images is more on the graphic side. Pop art is stuff that people can relate to as imagery. Commentary pieces make people laugh. Cartoon art is understandable and easier to interpret. Warhol came to mind. I never liked him until I came to LA. This is why he did his work. He wanted people to understand his language; the language of the times.

It made me laugh every time I saw celebrities getting arrested. The degradation and humiliation people usually had to face didn’t humiliate them and made them even more popular. They became famous, and to stay famous they have to do strange things, including getting arrested. That’s sort of a strange phenomenon that’s happening; if you’re famous and you act inappropriately, the only thing that will stop you is law enforcement. I think actors and celebrities behave like animals because they can, until the get arrested. The process of becoming famous, the mug shots sort of capture that in a completely unique way.
Who was your first mug shot?

Mel Gibson. He’d made me angry with the statements that he made. The only way I could release that emotion was by making a statement about how I felt. I made a print of his mug shot with a Swastika behind him. I chose not to show it, but that was how I interpreted it. Since my first showing, I’ve been urged to do more and more. Swarms of celebrities are getting arrested these days. It’s all good fun, and thankfully, none of them are getting arrested for extremely heinous crimes.

The feedback has been very positive. The first time I showed was at the ArcLight. I noticed people taking pictures with their cell phones. It really makes people laugh, and I really enjoy creating work that makes people laugh.