I ended up living for a year near Lake Erie, which was the imagined end point of my childhood scheme to run away from home. The text begins with a catalog of monsters, trying to give scientific classification to the imaginary, while establishing a sense of unrest. It is followed by a list of materials required for running away then moves on to trial runs, getting as far as a corner, then finding inspiration in a neighborhood dog. The character transforms to an aesthete, cataloging sites from the road trip. The text ends in a depiction of a new society, an attempt at utopia within a cinematic backdrop of apocalyptic ruin.

The images created alongside the story deal with tensions between indoors and outdoors, the social values ascribed to repeating patterns and the promise of wild forms. Abstracted forms of ships act as reminders of romantic imagination, the mysteries of the sea and the unanswerable question of what’s beyond the horizon.

A catalog of this exhibition is available from Luis De Jesus Los Angeles.

christopher@russellarchive.com
Inquiries: Luis De Jesus, Los Angeles
(c) Christopher Russell
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