Image via Real Tinsel Gallery
“It’s rare in the art world when people have fun,” says Shane McAdams, director of Real Tinsel Gallery (1013-1015 W. Historic Mitchell St.). “I want to have a show that’s enjoyable without being low-brow.”
With that spirit in mind, Real Tinsel opens its exhibition “Fall of the House: Artists Respond to Poe” in time for Halloween. “I didn’t want it to be spiders and jack-o-lanterns. What’s left when you take that out?” Edgar Allan Poe came to mind.
“Fall of the House” assembles work by a dozen local artists who worked in a process McAdams describes as “a visual book club” as participants poured over three of Poe’s weird tales, “The Cask of Amontillado,” “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “Tell-Tale Heart.” On the way into the gallery, the viewer walks in between deep glass display bays lined on both sides with Alec Dolter’s 50 handmake candleholders. Once inside, just off to the right, McAdams’installation for “The Cask of Amontillado” includes a candle-flanked table set with linen, a decanter of cognac and two bottles of … what?
The three stories were imagined in many ways. McAdams’s triptych on “Tell-Tale Heart” is a muted metaphor of blood on white. Gregory Klassen represents Roderick Usher in sharp-edged portraiture drawn from German Expressionism; the face of Roderick’s sister Madeline could have screamed from a Munch painting. Rafael Salas’ affords a more abstract representation on the “House of Usher.” His series of four mixed media images—in black, white and shades of grey—depicts Roderick and Madeline in stages of disintegration before dissolving into a molecular pattern. A couple of luridly hued portraits of Poe are hung on the walls. And there is more.
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“Poe’s stories are very crisp—I was worried that we’d get objective, similar responses from the artists. Not at all!” says McAdams. “The responses were crazily diverse.”
“Fall of the House: Artists Respond to Poe” opens 5-8 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 29. For more, visit https://www.realtinsel.com/
