The first thing that comes to my mind when the subject of Stuart Netsky arises --whether it's him, his work or his role as one of this city's most prominent Pop and Abstractionist painters and teachers since the late '80s—is "obsession."

"Obsession" connects me to Calvin Klein's perfume, which reminds me not only of his readymade work called Eternity, his 1992 AZT-solution-based painting of Cindy Crawford and and his love of the fashionista world (he won a 1995 Pew Fellowship based on an essay quoting Linda Evangelista), but also of his appropriation of other designers' icons. He has a love of all things Ralph Lauren (see 1995's Ralph Lauren Basketball, and the Polo insignias printed in a mix of cornstarch and the sleep drug Halcion) and a twisted athleticism (see his takedown of classical beauty, a paunchy and pocky Apollo fashioned from sickly yellowing vitamin C).

These obsessions are revealed more fully than ever before in two concurrent shows: "New Paintings" at Locks Gallery and "Imitation of Life," a retrospective at Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery, where the University of the Arts space is filled with his paintings, sculpture, photography and installations.

Netsky's playful consumerist obsession reminds me too of his dedication to creating an illusory aesthetic, where makeup, nail polish, hair dye, lipstick and tanning creams are applied to the canvas (read: skin) to create new identities—as in works like Pansy Nosegay (1997) or Morris Louis Lipstick Polish (1998), whose stale waxy odor I can still recall with bliss and disgust.

"Being human has much more bearing on my work than being gay," says Netsky while walking his black poodle, Monty, through Rittenhouse Square between stops at his home and his studio at Girard College, where he's an artist-in-residence. He also currently has assistant professorial gigs at UArts and Philadelphia University.

"The subject of all that work across all that time—narcissism, vanity, mortality, disease—hopefully the materials I've used convey the strength of my message," says Netsky.

"These works and their materials critique the hegemony of culture, of masculinity, of power and make us question our assumptions of cultural constitution," says Sid Sachs, director of exhibitions at UArts and a curator who's been a fan of Netsky's since an early 1990s exhibit at the S.S. White Building on 12th Street. "The pillow exhibit—these big garish pillows with those Oscar Wilde aphorisms—fabulous," exclaims Sachs. Remembering Netsky's exhibits—1987's "size isn't everything" at Nexus, 1990's "Ash Trays and Candy Dishes"

at Temple Gallery, 2003's "Now, Voyager" at Locks—and the materials he's used in them is a game among local art aficionados.

"It's always been, 'The Medium is the Message'—the paint we use to disguise our aging and ultimately our mortality," says Netsky of his cosmetic palette. All this while being truly—literally—unable to see shades and tones while painting. "I'm colorblind. Really." These disguises, these things we use to make ourselves beautiful, Netsky has never used them for mere kitsch value. "In dealing with mortality and being a gay man responding to the AIDS crisis and how the wasting syndrome robbed one of humanity, it was important in the prints I was making to use what was appropriate." His message: There is no immortality. Not in beauty. Not in the face of AIDS. Hence, his use of vitamins and AZT (to boost one's immune system) and pancake and blush (to lift one's sense of the fabulous).

Yet in his newer pieces—large works with poured Day-Glo pinks and violet Motherwellian blobs—a new obsession emerges: painting. "Once I had addressed those issues I had, I was challenged by painting and abstraction," says Netsky of the segue from the cosmetics of his immediate past, to the unmodulated colors and shiny surfaces of Dementia Praecox or the simple oil-on-canvas Inside Daisy Clover.

"The trick—the hook—of using lipstick was over. Then, I was talking about topics where it was less important that they were great paintings," he laughs. Now, he says, "is precisely the time to make beautiful paintings."

The question arose: Could he paint? Could he say all that he wanted to say within a traditional medium? "To make something beautiful—whatever beautiful is—and still be about the surface, painterly or cosmetic," says Netsky, remains a constant in his work.

Romantic notions, silly notions, gay notions aside, Netsky considers himself, at age 50, as an artist in mid-career, one gratified to see his works old and new on display all at once. "This retrospective affords me the opportunity to see the work within the context of my entire oeuvre. You know," he says with a wink, "I have a very big oeuvre."

"Stuart Netsky: New Paintings," Feb. 1-26, reception Fri., Feb. 3, 5:30-7:30 p.m., Locks Gallery, 600 Washington Sq. South, 215-629-1000; "Imitation of Life," through Feb. 26, reception Thu., Jan. 26, 5-8 p.m., Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery, 333 S. Broad St., 215-717-6480.