awkward

Our wispy-haired celebrity art leader is no silver-tongued devil, but that’s O.K. What he lacks in verbal zingers he makes up for with physical ones.

Body language — both his and that of the pitiable people around him — is telling the story of Court Painter’s latest adventure inside his Inglewood studio better than anything else.

When I say “pitiable,” I’m thinking about his Press Attache, A Hardon MacKay, who was the visibly stunned victim of the shove heard round the art world.

Please tell me you saw it. Hardon, Court Painter and some straggling unpaid studio interns were arranging themselves for a photograph in the studio lounge. And Hardon, modestly holding his kilt, had the misfortune to be standing between Court Painter and the front of the pack, a lesser hunk in the bossy prom king’s path.

 However in a faux attempt at bluster he batted his Press Attache out of the way, perhaps mistaking him for an art critic or picturing that damn curator….what the hells his name….you know …the one with the limp or lump or lisp.

Then, triumphal, Court Painter smoothed his smock, straightened his hat, stiffened his posture and raised his wispy bearded chin. He was ready for his close-up.

 With Court Painter, struts, scowls and pouts reveal every bit as much as what tumbles from his lips, which is a lot less trustworthy. (Get him to explain Dark Matter and the Mad Hatter) His words can be counterfeit like his artist statements. But his gestures are genuine. So it only makes sense that we lean on them for the narrative of his post-truth portraiture, whose latest, local chapter brimmed with more awkward physicality than a toddlers’ gymnastics class.

The shove heard round the art world was preceded by the curtsy heard round the local fashion world, when Court Painter did precisely what he maligned his nemesis Chris Cran for — well, one of the countless things he maligned Cran for — and approached a well known collector with wads of cash poking out of his Armani suit in a pose of deference. Hypocrisy, thy name is Court Painter, and thy knees are bent and thy shiny head is bowed.

Thy sense of rhythm doesn’t exist. Did you see him during that street square dance, not so much rattling his booty as dangling his you know what while he wobbled, like a Weeble, from side to side?

George Bernard Shaw wrote a play titled “Arms and the Man.” Someday somebody will write a Court Painter biography titled “Hand Me Down Art and the Paint Splattered Man.”

That’s it. Give generously…..