July 18, 2006

If you see the new feature film Clerks 2, which opens July 21 in Vancouver theaters, you may see something familiar: images by Diane Farris Gallery artist Chris Woods.

Clerks 2 is the sequel to filmmaker Kevin Smith’s cult comedy hit from 1994, Clerks. Clerks followed the lives of two twenty-something losers and their dead-end jobs in a New Jersey convenience store. Clerks 2 meets the same characters again in their new jobs as burger-flipping thirty-somethings in the fictional fast-food restaurant ’Mooby’s’.

This is an almost perfect case of art-imitates-art. Much like Smith has done with his characters in Clerks 2, Woods has used himself and his thirty-something friends as models for his paintings since they were all in high school.

Woods’ art shows up (in slightly altered form) as background advertising posters seen in the Mooby’s restaurant. These posters can also be seen in the teaser-trailer for Clerks 2.

Woods was asked by the producers of Clerks 2 to contribute the images of two of his pop-realist paintings to be used as set dressing. These works are, ‘Houdini’ (1998) and ‘Behold The King’ (1997). They were altered slightly by the filmmakers to replace the existing logos with Mooby-style imagery and uniforms. As a fan of Kevin Smith, the artist was very excited about being asked to contribute to the film.

Woods’ work has appeared on the cover of Adbusters magazine, Saturday Night magazine, and numerous other publications. In 2003 he painted the cover for pop group Barenaked Ladies album, ‘Everything to Everyone’. He has had numerous solo shows in Canada and the United States.