elliott templeton fine arts
ARTISTS EXHIBITIONS NEWS INFORMATION
Tommy Puett
January 12 - February 11, 2024
Elliott Templeton Fine Arts is delighted to announce our third solo exhibition by the artist Mark Flood. Tommy Puett is a retired actor and former teen idol best known for his performance in the television series Life Goes On, where in 1989 he starred as Tyler Benchfield—the best friend to a teenager with Down’s Syndrome. His character dies tragically while driving drunk. With his mullet, chiseled body, and sweet face, Puett remained in relative obscurity even at the height of his career, though he maintained a teen heartthrob status before retiring at age 26 in 1997. Mark Flood became transfixed with Puett in the late 1990s, leading to the frequent recurrence of printed teen magazine photographs of Puett in his work. Puett’s face would sometimes appear dozens of times in a single painting, and he made guest appearances in pieces over several years. The seriality of Puett’s imagery indicates a mechanism of obsession. In Mark Flood in the 1990s, Flood (in the third person) describes Bodies in Space (1998) as “a diagram of Mark repeatedly stopping his obsessive thoughts about Puett by making art… I can act out my sex addiction or stay home and make art.” This exhibition includes three of Flood’s Puett works—Body in Space (1998), Me and My Dad (1999), and the final Puett painting, The God (1999)—alongside a more recent work by Flood, Soldier Boy (2017).
Press:
Purple
Artnet
Cultured
Press:
Purple
Artnet
Cultured
Four joined panels, clockwise from upper left: acrylic on canvas with printed paper collage element; exposed wooden stretcher bar; acrylic on canvas; gesso transfers and acrylic on canvas
40 x 31 in.
Acrylic on canvas with printed paper collage elements
60 x 50 in.
Acrylic on canvas with printed paper collage elements
36 x 48 in.
Collage
10½ x 8 in.
Collage
10 1/2 in x 8 1 /2 in
Collage
9 x 12 in.
Archival inkjet and acrylic paint on canvas
62 x 40 in.