In 2010, 17-year-old “Fiddle Tim” was heading to the opening of her first art show, and reading a Huffington Post article that revealed her real identity: Frances Bean Cobain. Seven years later, Cobain is opening a second show under her real name, reports Artnet. And it’s a pretty successful one too. Ghosts for Sale is a joint exhibition with illustrator/musician Lindsey Way, and since it opened at Pasadena’s Gallery 30 South last week, all of Cobain’s art has sold out.
Cobain’s seven paintings and sketches in Ghosts for Sale are slightly less macabre than what she’s been peddling on Depop since last summer. One cheekily-titled gouache work, “The Joey Lawrence Wet Dream,” is a cartoonish collage of Pacman-like faces rendered in Crayola yellow and intricate swirls of black ink. Other pieces temper Cobain’s more would-be nightmarish illustrations with dreamy swirls of watercolor and a somewhat humorous atmosphere. The works sold for between $1,200 and $4,500.
“I think what’s really great about this body of work that Frances has put together is that there’s a real confidence in the line and the mixed media,” said Matt Kennedy, who co-owns Gallery 30 South and manages La Luz de Jesus Gallery, where Cobain’s first show took place. “I love the bold use of color. She seems to have an inherent capacity for composition and color theory.”
Cobain isn’t the only fine artist in the family. Her late dad Kurt Cobain was a prolific painter and illustrator, amassing a treasure of personal works that was cracked open in Brett Morgen’s Montage of Heck.
“Lindsay Way & Frances Bean Cobain: Ghosts for Sale” is on view at Pasadena’s Gallery 30 South through June 30, 2017.
