Nyktomorph

I am participating in the group exhibition Nyktomorph at Curious Matter. It runs September 20 - October 18, 2009.  The following artists are also showing work:

Carrie-Ann Bracco
Arthur Bruso
Suzan Courtney
Peter H. Everett
Edward Fausty
Conor Fields
Jimmy Fike
Richard Haymes
Ricardo Hernandez
Mary Hill
Kay Kenny
Yvonne Piner Kleiman
Ross Bennett Lewis
Luis Locarno
Joan Mellon
Raymond E. Mingst
Christopher Moss
Brian Oakes
Franc Palaia
R. Wayne Parsons
Olivié Ponce
Owen Rundquist
Stacy Seiler
Cedric Yhuel


Here is the first paragraph of the catalog essay.

And now, as the night was senescent, 
And star-dials pointed to morn– 
As the star-dials hinted of morn– 
At the end of our path a liquescent 
And nebulous lustre was born, 
Out of which a miraculous crescent 
Arose with a duplicate horn– 
Astarte’s bediamonded crescent 
Distinct with its duplicate horn. 
excerpt from “Ulalame” by Edgar Allen Poe, 1847

From out of the nebulous light, at the end of a path, Edgar Allen Poe describes the appearance of the goddess Astarte. Here, she is an imagined figure of the night, or what’s called a nyktomorph. In darkness, when forms blend into one another and color is suppressed, our minds can create entire fantasies out of the shadows we encounter. Our inclination is to evoke something to make sense of what we can’t clearly see. But this impulse isn’t merely intellectual, the enveloping mystery of the twilight adds an emotional dimension—often fear and wonder—which lends these conjured figures and scenes a fantastical quality.


To read the rest of the essay, please go to the Curious Matter site. The catalog is available from Lulu.com.