Exile on Main Street, U.S.A.

What do Ryan Gosling, Britney Spears, and Keri Russell have in common? They each got their start in the Mickey Mouse Club, and, whether in real life or on film, they’ve all played characters so annoying you want to beat the crap out of them. True-life examples like these are part of what makes artist Bob Dob’s “Black Eyed Mouseketeers” exhibit so damned hilarious. The series of 6x6-inch oil paintings and drawings features a cast of miscreant Mouseketeers sporting black eyes and bruises, missing teeth, and wearing shredded mouse ears. It’s enough to make a Disney fan, or any 5-year-old, weep. But Dob, a former punk rocker from Hermosa Beach, swears he holds no ill will toward the Magic Kingdom; he even aspires to work on animated movies. “I love Disney,” he says. “My idea was to paint the mischief I used to get into as a teen at Disneyland. There isn’t always a squeaky-clean element that goes to Disneyland.”
Thursdays-Sundays. Starts: Aug. 7. Continues through Aug. 30, 2009