History Lessons/Dancing with Words

No Longer Available

Medium

Archival digital print, acrylic on birch, Yupo paper wooden ball

Dimensions

24 x 24"

Description

Somewhere in my brain, personal narrative mixes with fairytales. Historical events intertwine with the imagined and a veil of nostalgia blurs the border between fact and fiction. Sacred imagery moves about in the temporal lobe with iconic characters from children’s stories and recent news flashes picked from the Internet join the sagas of black and white television. My mixed media drawings and collages use these bits and pieces of visual history…the stones and bones of memory…to suggest a narrative and to engage the viewer’s associative responses. Stories are powerful. The sounds and meanings of words move me. A line from an old song moaning on a car radio served as a catalyst for this body of work. “Who will tell your story?” The lyric offered a quiet reminder of the power and importance of words. Who tells our story? Who writes our history?” Who defines our canons? “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “It means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” The passage of time has enshrined many of the characters from our fairytales and folklore as readily identifiable symbols. But the stories and characters are most often much deeper in meaning than one slim interpretation. Pinocchio and his elongated nose may represent the liar, but the rich, layered text of Carlo Collodi’s, The Story of a Puppet (Pinocchio), is a dark commentary on the extreme disparity of wealth in mid-19th century Italy and a plea for free education for all children. The modern fairytale, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and its beautifully drawn illustrations have been studied by scholars since it's release in 1900. L. Frank Baum was a political activist, so, the story has been interpreted as an allegory for the political, economic and social climate of the United States in the 1890s. Others have read the story and the 14 sequels as the mystic’s journey. My favorite character from The Marvelous Land of Oz, Jack Pumpkinhead, can be read as a creation story…the need to make God in our image. Although Lewis Carroll denied any political or transcendent interpretations of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, many scholars see direct references to the politicians and royal family of Victorian England. John Tenniel’s iconic rendering of Humpty Dumpty and his brusque dialog in Through the Looking Glass are all the more interesting when we know that the original nursery rhyme, Humpty Dumpty may be referring to a large canon used in England during the siege of Colchester in 1648 or a drink of boiled brandy and ale. The drawings and collages combine this imagery generated through reading and study with imagery that is personal and intuitive. The Iconic figures from book illustrations and cultural, religious and dream symbols share the platform with the characters that appear and press on my mind with no explanation. Visually, the work employs the pairing of opposites: Delicately rendered areas are set against jarring patterns, academically drawn passages are combined with cartoonish figures and realistically depicted images share the field with abstract shapes. The intricate colored pencil drawings and collages are a personal meditation about how the past (or what we think we know about the past) is entangled with the present and how words, stories, ideas, dogmas, policies, doctrines, memories, and legends can be weaponed. I would like my work to confront the viewer simultaneously with beauty and awkwardness and to mediate grace with humor. I am continuously searching for a weird elegance. I place great trust in the viewer. With everything said…in the end the work is simply a love and celebration of the act of drawing.

About this Artist

Patricia Bellan Gillen

Patricia Bellan-Gillen was born in Beaver Falls, PA and lives and works in rural Washington County, Pennsylvania adjacent to the West Virginia border. She is retired from Carnegie Mellon University after 29 years as a professor in the School of Art where she held the Dorothy L. Stubnitz Endowed Chair. The university honored her with the Ryan Award for Meritorious Teaching in 2000. Bellan-Gillen’s paintings, prints and drawings have been the focus of over 50 solo exhibitions in venues in Washington DC, Nashville, TN, Houston, TX, Atlanta, GA, Las Cruces, NM, Albany, NY, Bloomington, IL Portland, OR, Grand Rapids, MI, Wellington, NZ and Wimbledon/London, UK. Most recently, her solo exhibition, “Words and Other Weapons” was held at the McDonough Museum of Art, Youngstown, OH. Her work has been included in numerous group shows in museums, commercial galleries, university galleries, and alternative spaces. Venues have included: Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, NY,…

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