Arriving now at Millworks.
The street side awning quietly announces an umbrella of art, food and brewery. Watch your step, please. Going up to the rooftop 3rd floor where you will find pyrotechnics of all sorts…cherry bombs, sparklers, Roman candle, and bottle rockets. Studio #318, a shared space for three and #323, mirroring the same, are artists havens where numbers and letters play vital roles. Millworks has fireworks of its own in the likes of the ever-incendiary Huckle Buckle Boys (HBB) and R76 and P.D. Murray. You will meet these explosive artists who create art all year round.
Bette Davis, yes, those eyes, once stated “Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy night.” Soon, you will learn “eyes” are a recurrent theme in the artists’ body of work. Buckling in is a safety measure well applied when on the rollercoaster that Garrick Dorsett and Zack Rudy man in their amusement park of characters colliding in their zany funhouse.
Artwork from the Huckle Buckle Boys
Zack and Garrick are intense artists, radical in every sense of the word but as laid back as a Sunday morning, philosophically. They operate in a world completely of their own making. So, to be invited to their inner sanctum is a rare treat. Alice in Wonderland had nothing on this duo. Just ask Neo, “the red or the blue.”
To try to capture their art is akin to catching lightning in a bottle. Characters stemming from two fevered imaginations spring forth, creating a narrative that begs description. But rather than pigeonhole meaning, they leave the script wide open to interpretation. In creating mixed mediums on canvas, a new body of work is born out of their fomenting minds. HBB speaks to “new layers, drips, stabs and general experimentation” in sun-washed, colorful tones that would look snappy drying on a clothesline, except their subjects don’t wear clothes. Garrick went on to share that this is “a period of time to step back and check each other’s work, developing characters organically.”
Their latest offerings revolve around the integer “six,” which holds a questionable math quandary. The paintings focus on #’s 6, 12, and 24…are you beginning to see a pattern here? This new spate of surrealist tableaux reverts to a time when creatures crawled out of the ocean and walked on all fours, full of eyes far more than is necessary to see while begging to be seen. These specimens are desperately seeking classification under genus species. Where did you get those eyes? Jeepers creepers, where did those peepers come from? Just another secret, the HBB’s hold close inside, dating back to the mystery of 822. And as for letters, both Garrick Dorsett and Zachary Rudy have a number of R’s in their names. Looking forward to the next chapter of numbers 48 and 96 and of course 192 ad infinitum.
Art of Reina “R76” Wooden
When all one needs is a letter and a number as identifiers, it is a good indication that the persona is larger than life. Such is the case for R76, aka Reina Wooden, Harrisburg native, Howard University graduate and self-taught artist. Bombastic on all counts, from her bubbly, over-the-top personality to her fervent belief that art can and does change the world, she is a force to be reckoned with. Reina is an art activist, doing her part to help mankind become colorblind. It is my belief that, when that occurs, the platforms of art, sports, music, dance and positive dialog will eradicate all barriers blocking peace and harmony. She is a high-flying performer who never uses a safety net, trusting her own instincts from her days at university. This human dynamo wants more than anything to try to set the record straight.
As an African American, Venezuelan artist, Ms. Wooden is a revisionist historian with her works shifting the paradigm to reflect a spotlight illuminating the brutal eradication of marginalized histories in the African diaspora. She achieves this presciently with her thought-provoking tributes of Crowns for Kings and Queens for those who gave their lives through no choice of their own, as slaves, a theme revisited time and again in her oeuvre. Her series, “faces with Xs for eyes,” further advances the notion of a people who are not seen as human beings, merely a face among many. It is through her paintings that Reina focuses her lens on the tropes of racism, confronting the wrongs of the past, replacing those ills with symbols of royalty and power. The artist states, “the struggle is the canvas and the brush, the success.”
“No Longer Afraid” by P.D. Murray
The “IRs” of P.D. Murray point to “Irascible,” “Irreverent,” “Irrefutable,” just to list a few. Most of what follows is true. Looking at Bohemian artist, Paul D. Murray, a seafaring scalawag may come to mind. Paul’s eyes, gimlet for certain, are heightened by his trademark eyewear, which enhances his facial anatomy that looks at the world with a vision that is always 20/20, especially in 20/23. His visions often hallucinatory, high on life, often appear left of center always in keeping with his pure sense of self (awareness, reliance, perpetuating, you get the “picture”) and on the off chance you don’t, Paul will spell it out for you in his titles, captions, comments, etc., that adorn the encyclopedic range of ideas presented in his paintings. The artist personified, he is “irascible” proudly, “irreverent” by his very nature in a child-like way, and most certainly irrefutable,” a true force of nature. Old school art cred permeates his very being, a child of the ’60s born, the journey on his road to find out fortunately finding its way to the central PA art scene, landing in Millworks Studio #323. He holds court there on most weekends regaling visitors viewing the “master at work,” my appellation for him and engaging friends in his painterly patois dispensing thoughts on a variety of subjects. Knowledgeable and worldly as in one who lives life, Paul is perhaps a national treasure, or at least a local one. Think of Aristotle or Plato and the gallery of wisdom seekers surrounding them for a fraction of wisdom and insight. It is like those acolytes thirsting for knowledge delivered tongue in chic from P.D., always with a healthy dose of self-deprecating humor. The best part of all, no hidden agenda, what you see is what you get.
Commissioned works are a part of the show. Just ask him, brush always at the ready. Skyrocketing up the charts is a brand-new collaboration with the HBBs, guaranteed to turn heads and multiple sets of eyes. Murray’s latest offerings hanging on the wall at Millworks feature a massive work titled, “No Longer Afraid,” a repeated proclamation chanted aloud, reminiscent of What about Bob’s “baby steps.” Lastly, on P.D.’s summer itinerary… hang gliding over Ibiza, safari in Kenya, and waterskiing through the Everglades.
“Not only is painting cheaper than therapy, but it never asks me how I’m feeling,” P.D. says. “Usually, it tells me.”
Millworks is located at 340 Verbeke St., Harrisburg. For more information, visit their website.
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