Artistic views of animals share space with 'Little Witches' in Oklahoma City exhibits
October 8, 2015 - John Brandenburg
Animals are depicted in pastels and oils by Sohail Shehada, and their spirits seem to inhabit masks by Patrick Riley in two new shows.
The exhibits are at JRB Art at The Elms, where Pamela Joye also has a photo show of little girls dressed as witches.
Shehada
In the main gallery, a noncommittal rhinoceros named “Vanessa” presides over the fireplace, in a coolly detached but well-handled pastel by Shehada.
Flanking Shehada's rhino are two plaster owls on the mantel, droopy-eyed and nearly identical, but titled “Desolation” and “Tranquility.” The two owls are joined by a third, perched in a ghostly bramble of pale blue, twisting branches, in an oil by Shehada called “Watchers.”
“Must the Winter Come So Soon,” a zebra laments in Shehada's oil triptych, while the subject of his oil of “Akasi,” which means “horse,” has a bluish-white cast.
A dusted golden background contrasts nicely with the dark skin, ruffled collar and pearl earring of a human subject, an actor playing “Otello,” in Shehada's pastel.
A teacher of figurative sculpture and drawing at the University of Oklahoma, Shehada said his work is influenced by African culture, ballet, opera and the supernatural.
Riley
Riley seems to capture spirits of animals inside of his often empty-eyed and open-mouthed, or beaked, leather masks, adorned with beads, stitches, metal and odd objects.
Black parts of a musical instrument visually punctuate Riley's round “Violin Man Mask,” and a raised “Turquoise Snake” seems to writhe across the forehead of a shield-shaped mask.
Copper tubing twists over the ray-striated face of Riley's “Red Sun,” and his freestanding version of the “Elephant Man” has a striped trunk, silver tusks, white plumes and big ears.
Longtime Oklahoma City artist Riley is a former visual arts coordinator for Oklahoma City Public Schools. He received a Governor's Arts Award in 1995.
Joye
Salem, Mass., artist Joye said her photos of girls, ages 5 to 11, dressed as witches, began as a tongue-in-cheek response to tourism, but became more serious.
“I would find a place and direct to a point, but they ended up doing their own little things,” Joye said of her “Little Witches of Salem” series of black-and-white photographs.
Two of Joye's best pictures are of the shadowy silhouette of a girl in a big witch hat, and of a child dressed as a witch with four canine “familiars,” all looking away across Juniper Cove.
Others depict girls as witches in forests, fields and historic buildings, as well as running toward an old sailing ship, docked in Salem Harbor.
Joye is a Pennsylvania native who received undergraduate and graduate degrees in Oklahoma and lived in Seattle, before moving to Salem in 2006.
The three shows are recommended viewing during their run.
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