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Remember Saturday mornings when you were, like, eight years old? For me it meant waking up at my grandparent’s home (my parents had split when I was five and this was the neutral territory) at about 6 AM, running down the stairs into the “TV Room” and watching Saturday morning cartoons. This was usually over copious amounts of Lucky Charms, Honeycombs, Count Chocula and occasionally Frankenberry. Hours worth of Scooby Doo, Land of the Lost and Bugs Bunny followed. In those days no one complained of the inherent violence of the Road Runner. Kids were expected to like sugar. Eric Fennell manages to capture those halcyon days with an expert’s touch in his photos. He selects moments of pre-Reagan era angst. Slices of NYC bankruptcy before Mr. Koch ever asked “How’m I doin.’” He embraces the majesty of tail fins on Caddies, scarf-wrapped bouffants on blonde, African American and Japanese women and throws in a few UFOs for good measure. Fennell’s images are beautifully executed. Just creepy enough to keep you awake at night but still slightly erotic. A kind of wet dream for the beautifully disturbed. Sensuous in only the way that metal, hairspray, and science fiction can be. Skillful juxtaposition creates an eerie aura of calm that causes the hairs on the back of the viewer’s neck to stand on end. Fennell defies his audience to look away by creating tableaux that is as comforting as it is un-nerving. Photos taken on a summer vacation with the Addams Family. Cars and busses are featured heavily in the works. They are indicative of the go-go era they represent. Big, bold, sexy and hard. They are joined and sometimes overpowered by their surroundings. A gigantic bridge. A flying saucer (at a time in history when communism – the ultimate evil alien - seemed to loom at every wholesome American doorstep). What is especially enticing about these images is that the autos are models. The plastic kind you used to buy at Woolworth’s for 1.50. But perfectly assembled and photographed so astonishingly well that you swear you can get in and take them for a test drive. Using, improving, and re-inventing the concept of collage artistry, Eric creates a world unique unto himself. Utterly believable, thoroughly intoxicating and undeniably haunting.
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© 2007 Mikal Saint George |
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