Beauty is Embarrassing
Neil Berkeley
Synopsis
Beauty Is Embarrassing is a funny, irreverent, joyful and inspiring documentary featuring the life and current times of one of America’s most important artists, Wayne White.Raised in the mountains of Tennessee, Wayne White started his career as a cartoonist in New York City. He quickly found success as one of the creators of the TV show, Pee-wee’s Playhouse, which led to more work designing some of the most arresting and iconic images in pop culture. Most recently, his word paintings, which feature pithy and often sarcastic text statements crafted onto vintage landscape paintings, have made him a darling of the fine art world.Beauty Is Embarrassing chronicles the vaulted highs and the crushing lows of a commercial artist struggling to find peace and balance between his work and his art. Acting as his own narrator, Wayne guides us through his life using moments from his latest creation: a hilarious, biographical one-man show. The pieces are drawn from performances at venues in Tennessee, New York and Los Angeles including the famous Roseland Ballroom and the Largo Theater.Whether he’s parading a twenty foot tall puppet through the Tennessee hillside, romping around the Hollywood Hills dressed in his LBJ puppet suit, relaxing in his studio pickin’ his banjo, or watching his children grow up much too soon, Wayne White always seems to have a youthful grin and a desperate drive to create art and objects. It is an infectious quality that will inspire everyone to find their pleasure in life and pursue it at all costs.At its core, Beauty Is Embarrassing is a reminder that we should all follow our passion. It is those creative impulses that will lead us to where we need to go.
Director's Bio
Neil Berkeley has been working as a designer and director in film and television for over ten years. His work includes main title design for some of TV's most popular shows and he has directed several national commercials. He has also developed main titles for documentaries including The Cool School, Johnny Cash’s America, Air Guitar Nation and Respect Yourself: The Story of Stax Records. Since 2009, Mr. Berkeley has operated his design-based production company, BRKLY. The company developed most of the animated sequences in Beauty Is Embarrassing including the Mimi Pond Cartoon, the Pee-wee's Playhouse sketches and the end credits.Beauty Is Embarrassing is Mr. Berkeley's first feature length documentary.
