Jeff Gillette Does Dismaland

In selecting artists to showcase original work in his epic anti-Disney exhibition Dismaland, Banksy reached out to OC painter Jeff Gillette with a formal invite. Gillette has been painting his own brand of realistic landscapes of slums (aptly termed “slumscapes”), capturing images of makeshift shelters composed of random, disparate materials such as those you'd find in a landfill—trash, reclaimed wood, mismatched cloth, etc.

Gillette gets his inspiration from his world travels, dating back to his days as a young Peace Corps volunteer. While he was struck by the poverty, what he was drawn to was the inherent beauty within each handmade home—an “architecture of depravation and necessity,” as he says in his artist statement. Reflecting his sense of awe in realistic paintings, he also injects some cheeky product placement of brand logos, signs and other ironic imagery subtly within the frame.

When it came time to submit work for Dismaland, Gillette was given three months to produce six original paintings, all of which sold within 10 minutes of the show's opening. In these works, Disney characters run about as if navigating through a Silly Symphony romp. There's a broken Disneyland sign, a bare-assed Minnie Mouse crouching down to take a piss, an abandoned Ferris wheel and a decayed billboard.

Gillette is a fan of Banksy and the show as a whole. “The Cinderella Castle [from Dismaland] was the most striking to me,” Gillette says. “What I liked about it was how genuine it looked and how closely it resembled some of my paintings of the dilapidated castle.”

Although Gillette didn't get to meet Banksy in person, he has gotten attention from global collectors who want more of his work. “My favorite part [of Dismaland],” he says, “was the gift of me being part of such a big deal: art history's most elaborate piece of conceptual art!”