The Art of Hollywood
© Julia Fullerton-Batten
2026
Before green screens.
Before pixels replaced paint.
There was an illusion, made by hand.
At a time when the movie industry is ruled by digital perfection, I turn my camera toward what came before: a Hollywood built on canvas, pigment, and the invisible labour of master painters who created entire worlds behind the actors.
I travelled to Los Angeles to stand before these monumental, long-forgotten backdrops, survivors of another era. Once central to cinematic storytelling, they now linger in silence. By entering these painted spaces, I reanimate them, staging new narratives that resonate with the films we thought we knew, yet remember only in fragments.
The Art of Hollywood is a return to the age of hand-painted film posters, images that promised everything in a single frame: love, danger, glamour, escape. Borrowing their visual language, I construct carefully choreographed scenes in which reality and illusion collapse into a single image.
This work is not a homage.
It is a confrontation.
A dialogue between analogue craftsmanship and contemporary vision.
Between memory and reinvention.
Hollywood, once painted.
Hollywood, remembered.
Hollywood, reimagined.
click to view the complete set of images in the archive
Before green screens.
Before pixels replaced paint.
There was an illusion, made by hand.
At a time when the movie industry is ruled by digital perfection, I turn my camera toward what came before: a Hollywood built on canvas, pigment, and the invisible labour of master painters who created entire worlds behind the actors.
I travelled to Los Angeles to stand before these monumental, long-forgotten backdrops, survivors of another era. Once central to cinematic storytelling, they now linger in silence. By entering these painted spaces, I reanimate them, staging new narratives that resonate with the films we thought we knew, yet remember only in fragments.
The Art of Hollywood is a return to the age of hand-painted film posters, images that promised everything in a single frame: love, danger, glamour, escape. Borrowing their visual language, I construct carefully choreographed scenes in which reality and illusion collapse into a single image.
This work is not a homage.
It is a confrontation.
A dialogue between analogue craftsmanship and contemporary vision.
Between memory and reinvention.
Hollywood, once painted.
Hollywood, remembered.
Hollywood, reimagined.
click to view the complete set of images in the archive
InstituteTM (collectively Institute Pictures, Institute Studios, & Institute Artist) is redefining how stories are produced and told in the 21st Century. Founded by Producer Frank Evers and Director/Visual Artist Lauren Greenfield, we are a multiplatform production company representing auteur-driven storytellers across commercials, photography, fine art, film, and technology — and producing original work across every screen that those stories live on. Our multiplatform expertise and established global relationships in entertainment, commercial, fine art, and journalism create unmatched reach and cross-pollination of creative work. A film commission informs a photography campaign; a fine art practice shapes a commercial; an editorial relationship opens a documentary. Few companies operate fluently across all of these worlds. Institute was built this way from the ground up.
Clients include: Apple, Google, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft/Xbox, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Nike, Adidas, Lululemon, Under Armour, Dove, Maybelline, Clinique, Ulta Beauty, Aesop, Vaseline, LEGO, Balenciaga, Dior, Tom Ford, Kenzo, Supreme, Van Cleef & Arpels, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, Toyota, McLaren, Pennzoil, American Express, Chase, U.S. Bank, Burger King, Chobani, Corona, Pepsi, Nespresso, Lavazza, Velveeta, Airbnb, Four Seasons, Marriott, Instacart, eBay, JCPenney, Levi's, Swatch, Bang & Olufsen, Bayer, Pfizer, Genentech, EA, Planned Parenthood, Ad Council, and the United Nations. Editorial and publishing partners include: The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, GQ, Esquire, TIME, Bloomberg, National Geographic, The Economist, Monocle, Le Monde, Stern, Sunday Times Magazine, Phaidon, Steidl, Abrams, Prestel, Chronicle, and Random House.
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