Courtesy the Artist
When we spoke with artist Grady Gordon last May, he was gearing up for Halfway Halloween, his first-ever show at The Crow's Nest Oddities Store, an aptly named shop run by Santa Fean and certified weirdo Rose Hutson. Gordon's signature monotype practice—a method through which the subject of a piece is created by scraping negative space from a solid ink background with various tools—felt particularly suited to Huston's shop of horrors, and now that the so-called spooky season has rolled around, Gordon is ready to dive even deeper into the spirit of Halloween and dead things.
Dubbed Samhain as a tribute to the pagan festival that at least partially influenced Halloween, Gordon's new show touches upon elements of monster lore, horror, death, religion and blasphemy, though with a decidedly tongue-in-cheek subtext that both elevates and defuses the artist's fascination with death. The story is fairly similar for horror heads: a fascination with VHS box art at video rental joints blossomed into a love of the film genre and its implications; for Gordon, however, the obsession runs deeper.
"I suppose I am fascinated with death to a certain degree," he tells SFR, "but I'm deeply afraid of dying as well, and that comes from real-life experiences."
Some years ago, for example, Gordon says, he found himself at death's door when his appendix ruptured unexpectedly. A 2002 car wreck involving a teenaged drunk driver furthered his reverence for the afterlife.
"She hit us head-on," he explains, "and we all walked away. I broke my pelvis and collarbone, my partner at the time broke her femur in half, broke her hand—and it was the [other driver's] second offense, and she only bumped her knee. So yeah, I've been obsessed with horror movies since I was a kid, but I had these brushes with death and was just like, 'Fuck it, man,' and I think that's when my art got weirder. And it's not that I'm wanting to celebrate death so much as it's this double-edged sword where I'm fearful but fascinated."
In Samhain, Gordon's dichotomous feelings manifest in both familiar and novel ways. Some of his monsters resemble wraiths or amphibious creatures, while good old-fashioned skeletons and skulls make numerous appearances. Gordon even stumbled upon a happy accident wherein a resin he attempted to use didn't adhere quite right to his pieces, leading to a creepy pockmarked effect he describes as "truly excellent." The show also toys with the idea of Jesus Christ's resurrection through imagery that would surely ruffle the God-fearing's feathers, though Gordon describes both Christianity and Satanism as "hilarious."
"I have a few pieces, too, that are like monsters in their own skin, but wearing the costumes of other monsters," he adds. "I've got a few silly ones that are like children in dress-up masks—because this is all really a survey of how I feel about Halloween."
The subtext, of course, being steeped in fun experiences. Yes, Gordon's pieces are dark and even scary, but like the films he came to love as a child, they work best when we realize they're steeped in an alternate reality. Horror and horror imagery allow us to tiptoe right up to the threshold of the death experience while staying very much alive. Perhaps that's thrill enough on its own, but by expanding our lexicon of spooky ephemera—like that found throughout Gordon's Samhain—we leave room for new sensations from within familiar territory.
"There's a part of me in all of it," Gordon says. "I don't think anyone who has met me is like, 'Grady's super fucking dark,' but I love that kind of...I'm an elder goth, I'd say, an elder metal dude. My mania; my depression; my love of video games; horror; how I experience the human condition? This is for my 10-year-old self trying to watch The Lost Boys when my folks said I couldn't."
Grady Gordon: Samhain: 6-8 pm Friday, Oct. 25. The Crow's Nest Oddities Store, 518 Old Santa Fe Trail, (505) 416-7049
