Arrivals & Departures

New Paintings and Drawings by William Fellows
New Work by Dave Rainey

May 1 – 30, 1997

Location / 82 University Street, Harbor Steps

Also featured, Trench performance project by Allison Kyner. 

In May of 1997, Bill and I split the gallery right down the middle. We dubbed our show Arrivals and Departures, after two images: a figure from one of Bill's paintings magically ascending skyward, and a man from one of my fuzzy photographs descending the steps of an airplane.

While our materials and imagery were very different, we had an intuitive sense that our work would mix well; we could both be silly, playful, spooky, and, at time,s sinister. Bill's paintings felt to me like the devotional scenes of a wacky, vaguely dangerous secret sect, while you could say my pictures were that sects's vacation photos.

There were lots of fleshy obsessions on view that month: bloody fingers, baked chickens, crutches, casts, booze, and other earthly terrors and comforts. Clues to the exact meanings of the pictures were hard to find, which was half the fun. The luscious colors, bright candies, deep pink skin and green fields felt both warm and odd, familiar and savage.

Text by Dave Rainey