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| Painted Totem Birdhouse with cat and three birds |
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| Black Headed Grosbeak a songbird |
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| fish crow whose nasal calls ring from salt marshes |
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| Young Gray Jay, hearty bird in cold |
Joe Fay’s angler fly-rod flexes luring a trout, imitating the
flight of an insect. Joe Fay’s paintings at LA Artcore perch for a moment,
ready to take flight into a dream-scape. An answer to a bird call, “fee bee o,
” from the Alder Flycatcher’s mate
arrives in a kaleidoscope of tropical music heard by Paul Gauguin in another
time. The paintings sing in zig-zag
patterns that pick at childhood memories of marble painting, hot summers
skipping rocks in creeks, and rick rack birdhouses gone wild.
Fay pulls you upon a journey. Back to waka poems, or Ebru of
the 10th Century were inscribed upon drifting sandpaper. Reminds of the Turkish
marbling you tried to imitate, not knowing ancient Persians also used colorful
clouded papers, only to find your hands muddied by the combination of red and
green. Fay doesn’t use earthly umber or brown, he revels in joyful hues of merlot,
magenta, lapis, and cerulean.
Don’t think the palette is primary colors. Fay doesn’t wax
heavy-handed. His brush is a slender stream that wicks and tears wet paint into
streams of thickets of acrylic. With pointed wings, Fay draws birds of Montana,
friends he knows well. Aerial feeders open their beaks to the sky. A Black
Crowned Night Heron watches from a neon branch for its prey. Ravens circle a
landscape as if enchanted by a spell.
The thick soup of foam and paint glisten as jewels sprayed clean by
morning mist. Paint appears to continue bleeding like a stream of marshmallow. I refer to the sap of the
Fay’s show includes drawings on paper with his signature zip
tie language, works on canvas, fans, and birdhouse sculpture reliefs with beaks
that scare off predators. Nature flows upon the canvas.
Los Angeles welcomes back Joe Fay from his migration from
Montana. The show is up until March 28th.
Video below shows the viscosity in the paint, plus clips from his thoughts live at the exhibition.
UNION CENTER FOR THE ARTS
LA ARTCORE UNION
CENTER FOR THE ARTS
120 Judge John Aiso Street Los Angeles, CA, 90012
copyright © all rights reserved images, video and lyric essay
Caroline Gerardo
copyright © all rights reserved images, video and lyric essay
Caroline Gerardo
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