Featured in The Jewish Advocate

The Jewish Advocate

News p.9

June 1, 2007

By Raphael Kohan

Painting makes a splash at SNL

Artist attracts late-night attention

As a self-described “narrative figure painter,” Helena Wurzel’s body of work consistently offers a collection of individuals interacting in single scenes. And familiar faces are the norm for Wurzel, a recent graduate of Boston University’s MFA painting program, who often enlists friends as models to include in her work. But at her thesis art show at the 808 Gallery on Commonwealth Ave., it was a different sort of familiar face that led to her most impressive sale to date.

“I had been driving past the BU art building every morning and it looked like a good show,” said Brookline resident Mark Cohen, godfather of Saturday Night Live cast member Andy Samberg. “I stopped in one morning and by chance I saw this painting with an image of my godson. It’s the first time I saw him in an oil painting.”

That painting, entitled “Girls in a Box,” depicts Wurzel and her roommates interacting in their Brookline apartment. At the center of the scene, a computer screen frames a still of Samberg and SNL guest star Justin Timberlake in a recent skit for which the painting was named.

“It occurred to me to put that on the computer because it was something I had watched on my computer multiple times and something I know people in my generation have also watched,” Wurzel said of the SNL skit.

Cohen asked Wurzel to send him an image of the painting in an electronic file, which he forwarded to Samberg in New York. Cohen told the artist that he wanted to buy the painting, but first needed to see if his godson liked her work. Apparently he did.

“He was a little shy,” Cohen said of Samberg. “I thought he should have it on in his den or in his office. He thought it might be a little self-aggrandizing, but I said not at all.”

Cohen eventually convinced Samberg to hang it in the SNL offices where he could “share the publicity of it,” before striking a deal with Wurzel for the painting, which had a list price of $1,500.

“It’s going to the right home completely,” Wurzel said of the painting. “I was so excited he would even get to see the painting, let alone buy it. My parents wanted it, but I had to call them and say, “Sorry, it’s going to a better place.’”

And Wurzel hopes to accompany her painting, which will make its new home in the SNL offices, down to New York City sometime this month. She may even sneak a quick tour of the TV show’s studio. But, Wurzel insists, this will not begin a trend of celebrity paintings.

“I’m just going to keep painting what I’m interested in,” she said. “If it happens to include someone, then lucky them. The product placement will be out of my own personal taste.”

Utilizing fashion prints and household designs like wallpaper and carpet for patterns and texture, Wurzel’s painted scenes – like “Girls in a Box” – are also infused with references to popular culture; a tactic that she said can give a contemporary edge to her work.