Jan 20th 2018

Molly Welsh: Violet Hours

@ Bar4000

2000 W Carroll Ave, Chicago, IL 60612

Opening Saturday, January 20th, from 6PM - 9PM

On view through Friday, February 9th

Violet Hours

This is a show of paintings from the violet hour: a place, a time of day, an act of compression. The very fast place between screaming a name and forgetting it. I could also say, these paintings exist in hot pursuit of the question, ‘does it move or does it absorb?’ And also,

‘What should I do with my eyes?’

I don’t remember any of the events, the characters, or plots from these hours, but I do remember the light. It’s a kind of violet to be sure, a backward violet, the color of retrograde. Its most distinctive quality is being simultaneous.

It’s always folded and glowing.

When they ask me what happened, I will reply honestly:

I saw its eye and its orange beak and I fell asleep with my mouth open.

It was morning, afternoon, evening, late winter, early spring, late summer. It could take an hour or it could take all year.

In the violet hour there is nothing between reality and a caricature. The end is always orange.

Even now, sitting talking in our kitchen,

I’m killing my salmon

again and again.

It’s the color of light disappearing in the midwest. A Violet Hour. An orange so hot it begins to absorb everything around it.

Electric recognition followed by a slow, painful remembering.

I soar, It drips.

And Paint, as in, “I want to live the in-between things, for the overlap.”

Maybe a still life. I was Tired so I went to sleep instead of painting. When I awoke the next morning, reverse. The city disappeared under white and I vomited in the snow.

Now It’s January, and

I know I want to be at least as alive as the vulgar

I should sleep in the center of a big room

I want to be alone at night in a wet city

with hair the length of spaghetti.

I want to be as liquid as Austin Powers’ Mojo.

What do snakes think about when they are not hungry?

They sit in drawers on the internet,

looking damp.

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