Barry Morse
participant in
VideoChannel – [self]~imaging
artists portraying themselves in film & video
NewMediaFest’2010
Los Angeles native Barry Morse is a multimedia artist whose body of work critiques and explores gay identity and body image through multiple themes: body hair, gay adolescence, crocheting, bodybuilding, and self-manipulation through costume, wigs, makeup, and plastic surgery. His paintings, films and videos, installations, performances and photography have been exhibited in eclectic venues and festivals, including MIX NYC, Outfest (Los Angeles), Santa Monica Museum of Art, Cohan Leslie Brown Gallery (New York), Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, and the Department of Motor Vehicles (Los Angeles). Barry’s previous video, Ookie Cookie, premiered at film festivals in the spring of 2009, and has played around the world, including Outfest, American Cinemateque, Frameline, Tel Aviv Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, and Homo A Go Go/San Francisco. In 1998 he began work as a licensed cosmetologist in order to more thoroughly explore the world of glamour and beauty. This work continues to inform his artistic output, blurring the lines between art, craft, and labor. He graduated from California Institute of the Arts in 1993 with an MFA in Film/Video and Art.