"Twilight Scenes" by William Flanagan
An exhibit of dark watercolors created by local artist William Flanagan lure us across the invisible boundary between familiar and unseen worlds.
“Twilight Scenes” featured buildings, homes and monuments as viewed through a midnight blue point of view that “exploits contrasts and plays with contradictions,” to use Flanagan's words.
An oppressive night sky lowered by restless clouds is Flanagan's signature backdrop. Paintings such as “Sheryl's Room,” “Midnight Oil,” and “A Little Night Music” feature merely the gable or roof line of a historic home from a sharply angled perspective that gives dominance to the numinous skies and a peeping full moon. Some of the images in this exhibit use street-level views of local landmarks such as Dickson Street's own George's Majestic Lounge and UARK Theatre or Eureka Spring's Palace Bath House and Basin Park Hotel. But when viewed through the lens of Flanagan's twilight, even these straightforward scenes convey a dampened, other-worldy look. Flanagan says, “I look for the mysterious within the familiar, and I want viewers to feel it, too.'
Three of the paintings, “Graveyard Cat,” “Gregg Monument,” and “Welcome” take us to a place that we might not wish to visit on a moonlit night'”such as Evergreen Cemetery between University Avenue and Center Streets in Fayetteville. Another painting, entitled “Ghost in Carnall Hall,” frankly admits to the mood conveyed more subtly in other paintings'”Flanagan's twilight world is haunted by others that not all of us may see.
Flanagan's paintings have been exhibited numerous times in the Fayetteville area, including the Fayetteville Town Center, Arsaga's Espresso Café, The Gallery, the Perk, Fayetteville City Hall, the Bank of Fayetteville, and the Fayetteville Fine Arts Festival. Flanagan's images have also been used for purposes of historic preservation. His painting of Carnall Hall, for example, was used as the promotional image by the Committee to Save Carnall Hall and currently hangs in the lobby of that renovated building. In addition, his painting of the Ozark Theater was used to inspire renovation and purchase by the Bank of Fayetteville, and his painting of the Gregg Monument in historic Evergreen Cemetery was donated to the Evergreen Cemetery Security Fund for fund-raising.
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