Part biography, part live performance, Beauty Is Embarrassing traces the career of Wayne White and shows what it takes for one uniquely talented, profanely hilarious, and utterly uncompromising artist to make it in America.

Raised in the Tennessee mountains, Wayne White started his career as a cartoonist in NYC. He quickly found success as one of the creators of the Pee-wee's Playhouse TV show which soon led to more work designing some of the most arresting and iconic images in pop culture. Recently his word paintings featuring pithy and often sarcastic text statements finely crafted onto vintage landscape paintings have made him a darling of the fine art world. The movie chronicles the vaulted highs and crushing lows of an artist struggling to find peace and balance between his professional work and his personal art. This is especially complicated for a man who struggles with the virtues he most often mocks in his art...Vanity, ego, and fame.

Post-film Q&A by Scott Nash and Nancy Gibson-Nash, directors of the Illustration Institute, where Wayne White was a former artist in residence.

See the exhibition before the film! Including Scott Nash and Nancy Gison-Nash's work, in addition to almost 90 other illustrators with Maine connections. The Great State of Illustration is on display at the Ticonic Gallery until July 16.

Friday, June 9 at 7pm

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Reserve free tickets below. Without an advance ticket, seating is not guaranteed. Any remaining tickets will be issued at the Box Office before the event.