Recent Concoctions
October 2 – 27, 2018
SO? #2, oil on canvas with fabric, 36 x 48 inches, 2018
Baller blockin’ ain’t an option, that ain’t the purpose of my concoction. “
– “Hittin’ Curves” by Grits
Hank Feeley returns to First Street Gallery with an exhibition of new work titled Recent Concoctions. This is Feeley in his classic non-sequitur mode. Paintings and mixed media concocted out of the grab bag of our lives, enhanced by the beauty of random musings.
The works are lively and bright, and have a collage based visual approach involving multiple elements playing off one and other. For this exhibition Feeley has added the occasional fabric grace note to certain of the works.
For example: “So? #2” features a contemporary grocery store take on the still life paintings of seventeenth century Dutch masters, but with a mysterious hand intruding from under the table and the Socratic question “So?” inscribed on a party balloon. The colorfully draped splash of an actual Dutch fabric on the otherwise unadorned right side completes the composition. Feeley has said “My compositions are aesthetically pleasing, at least to me.”
A few quotes about Feeley’s work:
“If Hank Feeley were not so strikingly original, I would say that he stands at the intersection of Magritte and Marvel Comics, but as it is, he has his own way of disorienting the viewer so we can see again, now with our perception refreshed.”
– Billy Collins
“The intensity of his style, combining imagery from popular culture, art history and advertising, with heady color, has something in common with surrealist Max Ernst’s description of his own work in collage: ‘A linking of two realities that by all appearances have nothing to link them, in a setting that by all appearances does not fit them.”
– Ellen Fischer
“Hank Feeley’s work is batting 1000% with me.“
– Ed Paschke
