A time gone by. A time yet to happen. Child's play not forgotten.
Off to worlds unknown.
Remember the first time you sat in one of those vintage amusement rides? For a few magical minutes you were not sitting at a fairground or outside a grocery store. You were flying. Somewhere beyond the ordinary, something extraordinary was waiting, and you believed it completely.
Come Fly With Me begins there and takes it somewhere wilder. The vintage red and white jet at the center is real: a beautifully preserved amusement ride, photographed and transformed through layers of digital painting into something between memory and dream. Around it a surreal dreamscape opens up: kaleidoscopic spirals, vivid reds, deep greens, spinning color, a portal in the corner leading somewhere else entirely.
This is where imagination lives when you are young. Not in open sky, but in a world that follows its own rules, boundless, and entirely your own.
The invitation stands. Won't you come fly with me?
With thanks to Hudson Goods blog for allowing a derivative work from their remarkable vintage amusement ride jet. (It would also make the most incredible lighting fixture. Just saying.)
Exhibited at Abstracts & Surrealism, Escondido Municipal Gallery / Escondido Arts Partnership, June 10 – July 2, 2016.
