HALLUCINATORY TWILIGHT @ CINEMA DU PARC

exhibition @ Cinéma du Parc in Montreal

I will be exhibiting artwork from May 27 to June 30 @ Cinéma du Parc
(in the mezzanine gallery)
3575 av. du Parc, Montréal
http://www.cinemaduparc.com/
More info to come later this month.

30th year anniversary show OCCCA

A celebration of current and past members of OCCCA
October 14 – November 27, 2010
www.occca.org

Orange County Center for Contemporary Art
117 North Sycamore, Santa Ana, CA USA 92701
714.667.1517
Info.occca@gmail.com

This year OCCCA is entering its 30th year and to celebrate this historic event we are devoting two months to showcase and reunite our past and present members.

We invite you the OCCCA alumni to participate,
We have a proud history of providing cutting edge thought provoking shows and showcasing a diverse range of art from hundreds of talented artists from around the world. We could not have made it this far without you.

A catalog will be created for this event :

Alexandria Allen
Angie Bray
Ann Phong
Barbara Berk
Bardene Allen
Burt Palisi
Carol Saindon
Carole Gelker
Christina Ponce
Dali Polivka
Darlyn Susan Yee
David Harton
Denise Di Salvo
Diana Frawley
Eileen Anderson
Eric Strauss
Evalynn AluFay Colmar
Francoise Issaly
Gabriel Mejia
Gina Genis
Hamid Zavareei
Janet Mackaig
Janice De Loof
Jean Towgood
Jeff Alu
Jeffrey Crussell
Jeffrey Frisch
Jennifer Irani
Joella March
Jorg Dubin
Julie Easton
Karena Massengill
Kebe Fox
Kurt Weston
Laura Hines-Jurgens
Lee Willmore
Leslie Davis
Linda Southwell
Lisa Popp
Lynn Kubasek
Marcia Louise Cox
Marilyn Ellis
Marsha Turner Pluhar
Melanie Kehoss
Mildred Kouzal
Mike Sasso
Nancy Kooslin
Pamela Keilson
Pamela Grau
Patricia Turnier
Patricia Whiteside
Phillips Patrick Merrill
Paul Silkowski
Ray Jacob
Rebecca Erbstoesser
Richard Bohn
Rik Lawrence
Rob Mintz
Robert (Bob) Tartter
Scott Ferry
Sergio Salgado
Shoshana Ernst
Stephen Anderson
Suki Berg
Susan Elizalde-Holler
Suvan Geer
Theresa Fernald

http://www.occca.org/exhibitions.html#future

We are expecting you, it's nobody’s Game Over yet!

Press Start!
Opening reception: Thursday, July 8th6-11pm
1649 Amherst, Montreal, Quebec (Metro Beri/UQAM)

Starting July 1st you will have the chance to once again enjoy the world of Mario Bros, Pac Man and Donkey Kong. It is time to celebrate the wonder years when Tetris was giving us headaches, Metroid was keeping us from doing our homework and Mario had us dreaming about princesses.
More than 30 artists from around the world revisited the most popular video games from our childhood.

Headquarters Galerie & Boutique celebrates its 4 year anniversary this year and on July 8th, we invite you to celebrate with us the launch of Press Start!. For the occasion, Toy Company's VJ/DJ Pocaille will mix the most famous 8 bits sounds from the past.

Press Start! at Headquarters Galerie & Boutique until July 31st.
We are expecting you, it's nobody’s Game Over yet!

Artists:

Nate Meltzer (États-Unis)
Lou Pimentel (États-Unis)
Tweedlebop (Angleterre)
Jim Plukart (Colombie)
mr. Schuster (Allemagne)
Sneaky Raccoon (Angleterre)
Po (Argentine)
Acet1 (France)
Bunka (France)
Sandra (France)
Zombie Corp. (Montréal)
Fred Caron (Montréal)
Mimi Trailette (Montréal)
Scott Ferry (Montréal)
Laura Berger (Montréal)
Rupert Bottenberg (Montréal)
Tyson Bodnarchuk (Montréal)
Lauren (Montréal)
Arno (Montréal)
Astro (Montréal)
Yanick Blanchet (Montréal)
...and many more!

-- Tyson & AngieHeadquarters
Galerie & Boutique
(514).678.2923
1649 rue AmherstMontreal, Quebec
H2L 3L4
CANADA
www.HQgalerieboutique.com
HQgalerieboutique@gmail.com

Scott Ferry @ Agora Gallery, Cegep du Vieux Montreal Feb 2010

Exhibition : DELIRIUM

Hallucinogenic paintings, pop-art silkscreens, disquieting kinetic sculptures, erotic etchings, original drawings, trash plush toys, surrealist jewelry other fascinating curiosities will massively take over the space. The exhibition takes place at USINE 106U, 160 Roy E. from January 6th to January 31st 2009, and the opening will be held on Thursday January 7th from 5hPM to 11hPM. Opening hours are Saturday to Wednesday noon to 6hPM , Thursday & Friday from noon to 9hPM.

telephone: 514-728-9349

DELIRIUM presenting the artwork of 31 visual artists: Mark Prent, Eric Braün, Xavier Landry, Adeline Lamarre, Mimi Traillette, Scott Ferry, Yves Milet-Desfougères, Daniel Erban , Sweet Grognasse, Majka Kwiatowska, Winky, Dominique Cantin ...

USINE 106U, 160 Roy E., Montreal, Quebec

Henry Darger's Room : Intuit Museum Chicago (review & reflections by Scott Ferry)

HENRY JOSEPH DARGER
(12 April 1892-13 April 1973):

"I HAVE ALWAYS WANTED TO BE A CHILD AND HERE I AM
A LAME OLD MAN—DARN IT!"


This book is compiled with two series of photographic records: Keizo Kitajima accompanied Inuhiko Yomota to cover Darger’s apartment for the magazine Asahi Journal in 1999, the very last time the room was photographed before its contents were removed. Kiyoko Lerner kindly let us use the old photos from the 1970s, rare images taken when the apartment was being cleaned not long after Darger’s death.

These photos show the apartment where the elderly outsider artist Henry Darger (1892-1973) spent the last forty years of his life, almost until he died on 13 April 1973, a third-floor backroom of a townhouse on Webster Avenue in Chicago.

Henry’s room was on the third floor. It was filled with STUFF from floor to ceiling. There were stacks of newspapers, magazines, and empty bottles of Pepto Bismol. It appeared as though every single thing he had brought into the room in the forty years he had lived there had never left the room. There was hardly any space left to walk around.

Henry looked like a street person. He was very shy and never looked at you when you saw him on street and said “hello”…. Henry did look very dirty and uncared for not to mention the strange look in his eyes. He also always wore the same military overcoat which was greasy-looking and came down all the way to his ankles.

Whomever could have imagined that once he entered his room, this dirty, shuffling old man wrote and painted another world into being? …. None of us could make heads or tails of all this JUNK and the great mystery that we uncovered from Henry’s room.

Kiyoko Larner (landlord)

August 4, 2009
review and reflections by Scott Ferry

Having just returned from visiting Chicago I am left with many deep impressions, but the one that sticks the deepest for me is visiting the Intuit : The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art. (http://www.art.org/ ) I specifically had set in my mind when I was leaving for Chicago that I would specifically go and see the exhibit of Henry Darger’s Room.

I arrived in the city overwhelmed by the vast and monumental Neo Classical style buildings, art deco and Gothic detailing, remnants of Masonic lodges, and White City. I am not an expert in architectural history, but nevertheless I was in awe. The city was a good mix of new and old, gritty and clean. There is definitely a presence in the city, maybe from memories of Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, Dr. Henry Howard Holmes, or the Victorian haunts of Graceland or Rosehill cemeteries. Even if I look at my impressions now of what I felt and saw, there is something with me.. a hauntedness that lingers on.. old cities have this feeling, something that will not let go.



All of this set the atmosphere for the easy CTA ride down to 756 N. Milwaukee Avenue. I was not sure what to expect with regards to seeing Henry’s room recreated in a museum setting, but I knew intuitively I would sense something powerful for sure. When I arrived I had a hard time not rushing to see that exhibit in particular.. so I made myself patient as if I was opening a gift slowly by looking at each of the other outsider artists on display.

At the entrance to the room is one of Darger’s original panoramic works. In close-up viewing you can feel the raw edge and power he poured into his creations. All that thought, nightmare and reason. I lingered in the small corridor where they had pictures of the original room and writing about his life, recollections from people who knew him, and observations.

One thing I have noticed in studying Henry Darger is that you have to really delve into it to gain a complete pictures and understanding of his world. One overview, video or a book is definitely not enough. Most of the writings have not been published, so the comprehension we have to go with his images are scattered and fragmented and leave a large mystery left only to the researched who can truly dive into them. For most people, our vision of Darger is screened and filtered by the presentations we are given. That is unfortunate. Nevertheless I am heavily grateful for when new presentations of his life and work appear. It is exciting and we gain a new glimpse.



I turned to my left and there was the recreated room, everything but the floorboards were original. A couple of the Vivian girls hung in frames around an alter of statues and photos surrounding a fireplace. The Catholic images mixed with little girl photos and pictures. The first impression I got from the Vivian girl portraits was not the childlike quality at first, but rather the commanding looks. These were not simple little children, but in this room they were gods and they seemed to hold power over everything they gazed upon. This impression lends me to feel that Henry Darger in his stories was really torturing the children as a way to build them into martyrs and then immortal gods holding sway over the largely Catholic greater world. Here was his sense of justice, but also a spiritual rising above the suffering for his immortalized angels. I would have loved to know what he was saying in his room to these creatures of his imagination and importantly what did they say back.



The room is very well presented, stacks of paints, cutout images, magazines (notably National Geographic), and images on the walls that represents his inspiration, fear and also motivation. The museum chose interestingly enough to put a set of image of a tornado (bad weather) on the wall, considering he was obsessed with the weather. The old typewriter, or one of them that he used to type his legal size single spaced stories, was sitting on a table. I could feel the presence of this man who was largely neglected all his life and lived through another world. This world seeming to reject him and the other world where he was basically god and servant, a perfect battleground for his tortured conscience.

I spent some time there dwelling on the whole experience and trying to find clues to match the missing pieces of what I knew of the artist.



The girl who was sitting at the gallery was courteous enough to give me some extra information which I hadn’t previously known and gave me even more urge to search out what I could of Henry’s world. The museum apparently had placed both books, The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion and Crazy House: Further Adventures in Chicago, on microfilm. The girl at the desk had read some of the stories from that and gave me some detailing. One thing she mentioned stuck out in my mind and gave me greater impetus to search out what I could find and hopefully one day, if graced by events I can actually read it, was the details she gave about her impressions of reading Crazy House.

Now if you don’t know the story, Crazy House is the second book Darger wrote in Chicago. It contains over 10,000 handwritten pages. Written after The Realms, it takes that epic's major characters—the seven Vivian sisters and their companion/secret brother, Penrod—and places them in Chicago, with the action unfolding during the same years as that of the earlier book. Begun in 1939, it is a tale of a house that is possessed by demons and haunted by ghosts, or has an evil consciousness of its own. Children disappear into the house and are later found brutally murdered. The Vivians and a male friend are sent to investigate and discover that the murders are the work of evil ghosts.

Her impressions of reading this were that it scared her badly. She said the descriptions of tortures are much more graphic then the first book and the haunted atmosphere makes the story even more chilling. This utterly fascinated me. Hopefully one day they can publish more of the works, even in edited form it is better then nothing at all which is what most of us are left with.

On leaving I purchased the Henry Darger Room book, published by 2008 by Imperial Press. A good document of what I had just seen.

The artists I would mention at the museum that were of interest were William Hawkins (1895-1990) and Elijah Pierce (1892-1984), plus works by lesser-known artists Mary Borkowski (1916-2008), Mary Frances Merrill (1920-1999), visionary Morris Ben Newman (1883-1980), David Pond (1940-2001).

I would highly recommend if you are in the area of Chicago or are stopping through to go see this exhibit.

- Scott Ferry

(August 4, 2009)
www.scottferry.com

Acrobate - Opening Thursday June 4th 5PM to 11PM

ACROBATE

June 3^{rd to June 30th 2009}

Opening Thursday June 4th 5hPM to11hPM

USINE 106U

160 Roy E., Montreal

514-728-9349

Hallucinogenic paintings, pop-art silkscreens, disquieting sculptures, erotic etchings, original drawings, trash plush toys, surrealist jewelry other fascinating curiosities will massively take over the space.

Usine 106U Gallery is glad to invite you the opening of the colossal exhibition ACROBATE presenting the artwork of 31 visual artists:

Mark Prent, Eric Braün, Mimi Traillette, Karine Allard, Danielle Hébert, Yves Milet-Desfougères, Jean-Michel Cholette, Daniel Erban , Sweet Grognasse, Majka Kwiatowska, Xavier Landry, Alexandra Cuellar, Scott Ferry, Clara, Adam Norris, Kirsten McCrea, Winky, Jean Pronovost, Dominique Cantin, Jean-François Montagne, Enthytez, Jean-François Labelle, Simon Lepage, Jasmin Guimont-Fortin, Dantë, Stefannie Larichelière, Rob Kenter, Andrea Day, Liam, Maud Rabau and Sebastien Gaudette.

The exhibition takes place at USINE 106U, 160 Roy E. from June 3rd to June 30th 2009, and the opening will be held on Thursday June 4th from 5hPM to 11hPM.

Opening hours are Saturday to Wednesday noon to 6hPM , Thursday & Friday from noon to 9hPM.

Pictures from Wierdo Playground show at Glamort - April 2009

(Scott Ferry, Mimi Traillette, Cedric)

Retrospective pictures from the Wierdo Playground exhibition at Glamort gallery, Montreal.
(April 2009)
Oh, ya.. i included some of myself in these images finally. ;-)

(Life on the Other Side by Scott Ferry)

(Luc Poudrier, Mimi Traillette, Scott Ferry)

(Scott Ferry)