awards<\/a> culture, while hinting at the darker forces and hidden narratives that exist beneath its glamorous facade.\u201d<\/p>\n\t\tE. Barker \u00a0\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-hollywoodreporter-2021\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tE. Barker <\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhotographed by Roger Kisby<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI\u2019m inspired by cursed objects,\u201d says Barker, \u201cso I made this cursed painting of an Oscar award in a wheelchair.\u201d Barker, a 2025 Guggenheim Fellow, has used a wheelchair since being diagnosed with paraplegia following an accident at 19 \u2014 and has been exploring exclusion in artworks ever since: flags that sag and buckle, vacuum-formed sculptures referencing spaces built to shut disabled people out, performances that recast the body as a site of resistance. The wheelchair-bound Oscar zeroes in on what Barker calls \u201cthe frightening lack of wheelchair users in Hollywood.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tE. Barker <\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhotographed by Roger Kisby<\/p>\n
\t\t Salom\u00f3n Huerta \t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tSalom\u00f3n Huerta<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhotographed by Roger Kisby<\/p>\n
\n\tSalom\u00f3n Huerta grew up in the Boyle Heights projects, and his paintings \u2014 L.A. pools, modernist houses, gang members from his childhood \u2014 have landed at the Whitney Biennial, LACMA and Gagosian. But his most personal work may be his Daily Ritual series: spare, quietly unsettling canvases pairing his father\u2019s revolver with everyday objects \u2014 a Tecate, a pan dulce, a pair of peaches \u2014 each one a memory of the gun that sat on the bedroom table like it was just another piece of furniture. For his Oscar piece, Hollywood\u2019s coveted trophy gets the same treatment. \u201cIt\u2019s possible people would find the collision of an Oscar paired with my father\u2019s gun as shocking or in poor taste,\u201d he says. \u201cBut I\u2019m asking people to think about what is truly more shocking or dangerous: the potential violence implied by the elements in this painting or the number of this year\u2019s nominated films that are centered around gun violence?\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\tKelly Lamb\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tKelly Lamb<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy<\/p>\n
\n\tLamb\u2019s contribution to this portfolio is a blown-glass, mirrored cupid\/baby doll she\u2019s titled This Is Spinal Tap \u2014 a nod to Rob Reiner\u2019s classic mockumentary about artists who believe their own hype a little too completely. Stare at it long enough and you\u2019ll see yourself staring back. \u201cThe absurdity and spectacle of the art world,\u201d is how Lamb describes what she was trying to capture. She knows that world well; her multidisciplinary practice spans sculpture, photography, video, ceramics, furniture and product design, with shows at MOCA, the New Museum, Art Basel and the Armory Show.<\/p>\n
\t\t Daniel T. Gaitor-Lomack \t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tDaniel T. Gaitor-Lomack <\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhotographed by Roger Kisby<\/p>\n
\n\tGaitor-Lomack\u2019s multimedia practice runs from action paintings made with paint-soaked dodgeballs to durational performances, and his recent solo show at Night Gallery, \u201cYou Can Hate Me Now,\u201d crammed the American psyche into a room full of star-spangled cowboy hats, golden ashtrays, helium balloons and plastic car bumpers hanging from the rafters. For this portfolio, the NXTHVN Fellow, whose work sits in the Hammer Museum\u2019s permanent collection, stripped things down: a brick wrapped in gold, cinched in a black plastic bodega bag. It\u2019s a sharp little commentary on a moment when films of uprising are all over the nominations. \u201cSometimes you catch a brick,\u201d says Gaitor-Lomack. \u201cSometimes you catch a gold brick.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tDaniel T. Gaitor-Lomack <\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhotographed by Roger Kisby<\/p>\n
\t\tErick Medel \t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tErick Medel <\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhotographed by Michael Buckner<\/p>\n
\n\tMedel makes needlepoint paintings on denim with an industrial sewing machine, and his subjects aren\u2019t generally movie-related \u2014 they\u2019re the laborers keeping L.A.\u2019s film industry, and the city itself, running. For this portfolio, he stitched a workman hammering away as an Oscar helps keep a window open for him. \u201cI wanted to pay homage to the people working behind the scenes, whether in the industry or simply keeping this city going,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\t\tFrances Stark \t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tFrances Stark <\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhotographed by Roger Kisby<\/p>\n
\n\tL.A. legend Stark is the kind of artist who turns her sex life into paintings, her online affairs into animated films and a pop-up shop into a full lifestyle moment \u2014 complete with a Conspiracy Theory poncho and her own Panpharmacon perfume. Provocateur is basically her job title. So when asked to reimagine the Oscar statuette, she reached back to a previous, considerably less glamorous life. \u201cBelieve it or not, I once worked as a photo editor at an agency that supplied paparazzi images to tabloids,\u201d she says, \u201cand I was perplexed to discover that my boss \u2014 a real brute \u2014 was a voting member of the Academy.\u201d The result: a fragrance bottle fused with an Oscar-shaped candle, its gold head slowly melting. Magritte with a Hollywood hangover.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tFrances Stark <\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhotographed by Roger Kisby<\/p>\n
\t\tCharles Arnoldi\u00a0\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tCharles Arnoldi<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy<\/p>\n
\n\tCharles \u201cChuck\u201d Arnoldi won the LACMA Young Talent Award in 1969 and has been reinventing abstract painting and sculpture ever since \u2014 with work in MOMA, the Met and LACMA, as well as a slot in the legendary \u201cDocumenta V\u201d in 1972. He also had a cameo in pop culture history when Dennis Hopper cast Bob Dylan to play a version of him in the 1990 film Catchfire. More recently, he\u2019s been bending rebar into sculpture and collaborating with British fashion house Alexander McQueen. For this portfolio, he did something he almost never does: \u201cI don\u2019t really think about the Oscars, and I don\u2019t make figurative work,\u201d he says. \u201cBut there\u2019s a human quality to this particular sculpture because it has legs and these morphing human forms. I guess you could say that\u2019s a commentary on the chaos that accompanies the Oscars race every year.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\tJessie Homer French \t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tJessie Homer French <\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy<\/p>\n
\n\tHomer French, now 86, came to this portfolio the old-fashioned way: through her late husband\u2019s subscription. Robin French \u2014 the mega-agent who represented everyone from Elizabeth Taylor to Marlon Brando before becoming head of production at Paramount \u2014 left behind, among other things, his THR account. Leafing through last year\u2019s Oscar issue, Homer French was inspired enough to paint an Oscar lying among the King Clone creosote, an 11,700-year-old plant considered one of the oldest living organisms on Earth. \u201cIt\u2019s ancient, so I thought about what\u2019s old and what lasts,\u201d she says. \u201cGold lasts, but do Oscars last?\u201d At her stage in life \u2014 and with her landscapes exhibiting at the Venice Biennale, the Hammer\u2019s \u201cMade in L.A.\u201d biennial and now, in the pages of her late husband\u2019s favorite magazine \u2014 she\u2019s earned the right to ask.<\/p>\n
\t\tAlex Becerra\u00a0\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tAlex Becerra<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy<\/p>\n
\n\tBecerra barely had his diploma from Otis College of Art & Design before landing on the cover of Modern Painters and in Cultured\u2019s Young Artists portfolio. Since then, he\u2019s been considered a painter\u2019s painter \u2014 capturing jazz icons, heroes from his Mexican heritage, his wife and his own recognizable bearded face \u2014 while also staging gonzo solo shows featuring live music, DJing and a faux Mercedes that\u2019s half instrument, half sculpture. His Oscar contribution is the \u201cOzcar\u201d: a three-dimensional figure sculpted from clay and built up with the same thick impasto oil paint that distinguishes his canvases \u2014 a statue, in other words, fit for perching. Says Becerra, \u201cThe award goes to the idealized Mexican male form, forgotten only to be used as a loitering point for seagulls\u2019 discharge.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThis story appeared in the March 11 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the third consecutive year, The Hollywood Reporter has handed Hollywood\u2019s most coveted trophy to a group of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":655961,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[5800,1582,276,2961,224,5337,15801,112784],"class_list":{"0":"post-655960","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-awards","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-la","12":"tag-los-angeles","13":"tag-losangeles","14":"tag-oscars","15":"tag-oscars-2026"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116229717496140617","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/655961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}