Show #12:
Pagan Holiday
Curated by Jacob Rhodes
Dates: Feb. 14th - April 6th
Elaine Su-Hui Chew
Krista Dragomer
Rachel Frank
Haley Hughes
Jocelyn Shipley
Eliza Swann
EXHIBITION IMAGES
Eliza Swann “East Witches in Ecstasy 2”, 2012
What keeps the Religious Right up at night? Visions of demons delighting in the flesh of humans. Hooded figures rising up to capture and sacrifice Rupert Murdoch. Orgiastic Coeds ripped in two for Satan’s pleasure. Easter Bunnies burrowing through the body of their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. A coven of six women have gathered in this exhibition to confirm those fears.
Join us on St. Valentines Day, or Lupercalia if you prefer, to celebrate the opening of Field Projects Show #12: Pagan Holiday. Artists: Elaine Su-Hui Chew, Krista Dragomer, Rachel Frank, Haley Hughes, Jocelyn Shipley, and Eliza Swann will be giving ritualist offerings in the form of art.
The Christianizing of pagan holidays has been ongoing for centuries. Every primitive god the Church encountered it abolished—spinning pagan allegories into stories of Christ, or simply creating a new Saint. Yet no matter how powerful and forcible the Church became, no matter how many women were accused of channeling the devil and burned at the stake—the Ascetics have never been able to extinguish the awe and pleasure of the body, nature, mystery, and sex. Paganism always returns, like flowers in the spring. So too have these artists returned to the images and ideas of Paganism, despite (or in spite of) the medieval grip of Christianity on the politics and culture of our country.
Each artist has exposed a pagan theme lurking just below the surface of contemporary culture. Eliza Swann’s photographs capture the ecstasy of witches. Rachel Frank finds faces in upholstery fabric, outlining them in ritualistic hand-beading, drawing out an occult mask ready for possession. Haley Hughes’ primitive paintings depict simultaneous group orgies and human sacrifice of the most powerful Christian deity of our times: Rupert Murdoch. Jocelyn Shipley has dismembered bikini clad Coeds of the bacchanalian Spring Break and reassembled their decaying limbs into the sacred pentagram for our pleasure.