"JAZZ BABY" BY NIAGARA

The original "Jazz Baby" is currently on display at the Gauntlet Gallery in Los Angeles.

Detroit music royalty, Niagara is the cult worshipped front woman for proto-punk art bands Destroy All Monsters, Dark Carnival and The Hitmen. Her stage theatrics - once described as "a cocktail of Valium, Tuinal and Nervine" - and ragged sex appeal inspired the Riot grrrl ethos on a whole as well as the individual stylings of budding female artists like Madonna. In addition she is a fine artist and painter who focuses on fluid lines and making men cry.

"The first art style that I identified with was Art Nouveau. Then I discovered Decadent Art (1850's-era England), the Pre-Raphaelite movement: haunted, pale, druggy women. I read constantly. I was deep into Dostoyevsky and Dickens. Colette. The best are the writers that can turn a phrase devastatingly funny. The witticisms and bon mots of Oscar Wilde, Mark Twain, Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, Dorothy Parker. Andy Warhol was a riot. I want the women in my paintings to speak."

"The Niagara Girl" -- in many guises -- represents feminist swagger with drop-dead-gorgeous looks and a dangerous demeanor. Niagara offers hard-boiled, tough talking women who would rather dispatch a man than put up with rude antics. Her bold, colorful, comic-strip-styled dames in various scenes of malfeasance parallel the modern tone of Callie Khoury's Thelma and Louise. Common ancestors include pin-up girls like Bettie Page and the dark side of 40's and 50's film icons such as Bette Davis, Lauren Bacall and Jane Greer.