I feel like I'm in a "strange loop," like Escher's drawing of a hand drawing a hand drawing a hand and so on. Please someone get me out of here! Last Wednesday I went to preview "a happy home," the installation art exhibit created by the husband and wife collaborative team of Brian and Jennifer Henry.
Marty Walsh, the owner of Trifecta Gallery, had assurances from the artists that they would have the exhibition installed by Wednesday. When Marty and I arrived at the gallery we found three mixed-media paintings and nails where the missing works would go. Two frantic phone calls later, we reached Brian, who was out of town at a conference, and then Jennifer on her cell en route with almost all the remaining artwork. Jennifer arrived arms full and breathless, but ready to talk. Here comes the strange loop part. In the course of my interview, she mentioned that she writes art reviews for several local glossies. I felt a jolt; how did I not know that. Marty tossed copies of the glossies into my arms and when I got home I read Jennifer's piece about Leslie Rowland, art furniture maker. I had just written a piece about Leslie Rowland, art furniture maker, for the "Las Vegas Weekly" print edition.
The Henrys'exhibition, where the artwork slowly appears while a beloved son slowly disappears, is a mirror image of the above adventure and Jennifer's written introduction is a good place to start if the viewer wants to understand the visual pieces that follow. "Meet the Happy family ... John Senior is a respected businessman ... Jane enjoys embroidery ... John Jr.is academically gifted ... Gracious and giving the Happys are ever triumphant even in tragedy."
The surname Happy signals that this family should not be taken at face value, but as an allegorical device to examine present-day good and evil. Much like a medieval morality play but painted instead of acted. Set in the '50s -- the most popular decade for nostalgia addicts and critics alike -- it can be seen as either a time of innocence and idealism or paranoia and repression. Setting a story in the '50s is like setting
it on a distant planet or far in the future, a place and time so remote your critique won't inflict too much pain and can pass with impunity.
The installation consists most prominently of a series of mixed-media narrative paintings, "out-takes" (small paintings that duplicate some object in the larger narrative paintings) and assorted objects such as small pillows in the shape of Valium pills, (called back then "mother's goodnight baby blues"). Each one of these hand-crafted items is intended as a homage to the '50s do-it-yourself aesthetic and are obliquely referred to in the large narrative paintings. This series of five large works depict the Happy family as they respond to the demise of their perfect son. Executed in a complete deadpan manner and using a combination of collaged '50s advertising illustrations, painted figures and thick areas of decoupaged varnish, they can be best understood if you view them in the right order.
Ironically titled, the series begins with "quiet is a happy home," a depiction of John Jr. lying motionless as his parents stand smiling at the door, then continues with "tidy is a happy home," wherein mom, fashionably dressed in black and wearing a hostess apron, is repapering her son's cowboy-themed room with a pill bottle pattern. The series ends with "cheerful is a happy home," an absurdly convivial mourning reception with only the departed son's wreath framed portrait to indicate he ever existed.
The Henrys' narrative is both nostalgic for a simpler homespun era and critical of our indifference to, and denial of, life's tragedies. The Henrys seem to be saying we're as idealistic and deluded as they were in the '50s, glossing over unpleasantness and ignoring what makes us uncomfortable. But they emphatically want viewers to reach their own conclusions from the work. Jennifer particularly enjoys the "a ha moment"
she can read in the viewers' eyes. This is a show I recommend you look long and hard at, because the more you think about it, the better it gets. But the loop was not yet closed when I viewed it. It will be, however, when a memorial wreath made of real flowers is hung at the last minute to frame John Jr.'s portrait.
Susanne Forestieri was the winner of the prestigious 1996 National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in painting. As an NEA fellowship winner, she is represented in the Smithsonian Museum of American Art. She can be contacted at [email protected].