Artist-in-Residence

Joy Feasley and Paul Swenbeck

A photograph of an interior space with drawers and cupboards embedded in the far wall, paintings hanging from the side walls, and a high wooden chair and floor rug at the center of the room.
Joy Feasley and Paul Swenbeck, in collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia, A Hatchet to Kill Old Ugly (installation view, The New Temporary Contemporary, 1222 Arch), 2014. Photo credit: Carlos Avendaño.

Magic and Shaker spirit drawings deeply inspired Joy Feasley and Paul Swenbeck’s FWM installation, A Hatchet to Kill Old Ugly. The exhibition illustrated Feasley and Swenbeck’s fascination with invisible powers that are all around us. They derived the show title from a Shaker name for the Devil—“Old Ugly”—seen in spirit drawings, which the Shakers create to describe symbols seen in their visions.

The main gallery housed what at first appeared to be a faithful reproduction of a Shaker domestic interior but is actually a set for an illusionist performance. The front window ledge displayed a Mager Disc—a tool used to divine the quality of water as it reacts to the harmonies in nature—and a collection of ceramic plants that suggest a charming yet menacing indoor garden. Paintings hanging on a peg rail portrayed otherworldly landscapes imbued with arcane magic. Hanging above the fireplace was a black slate dodecahedron on loan from the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia. This mysterious object was found on the banks of the Ohio River in 1792 and is presumed to be a Native American shaman’s calendar. Visitors could enter an unexpected passageway through the fireplace, which revealed a back room full of strange color, light, and musical elements, contrasting the front space’s proto-modernist Shaker austerity. Through A Hatchet to Kill Old Ugly, the artists proposed that science, asceticism, and magic are all possible methods of exploring our world.

Artist Bio

Joy Feasley
American, born 1966. Lives and works in Philadelphia, PA.

Joy Feasley, a visual artist, studied painting at Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, MA; The Cooper Union, New York, NY; and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA. Her paintings are often of intimate scale, and feature vibrant colors and otherworldly landscapes. Feasley’s work has been exhibited at Locks Gallery, Philadelphia, PA (2011, 2009, 2008, 2007); LUMP Gallery, Raleigh, NC (2010, 2003); the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, PA (2007, 1999); Vox Populi, Philadelphia, PA (2002, 2000); and at venues in Tokyo, Japan (2004); Waltham, MA (2003); and Brooklyn, NY (2001). She is the recipient of a Pew Fellowship (2011) and two Leeway Foundation Window of Opportunity grants (2003, 2001). She is represented by Locks Gallery.

Paul Swenbeck
American, born 1967. Lives and works in Philadelphia, PA.

Paul Swenbeck developed a fascination with the macabre and occult at an early age, which has filtered into his idiosyncratic sculptures, paintings, photographs, and installations. He graduated with a degree in ceramics from Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, MA in 1991. Swenbeck’s work has been included in exhibitions at Adams and Ollman (2013), in Portland, OR; Fleisher Ollman Gallery, Philadelphia, PA (2011, 2010, 2009), the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, PA (2009, 2004), Vox Populi, Phildelphia, PA (2009), and Morris Gallery at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (2005), in Philadelphia, PA; and at Walker Art Center (2009), in Minneapolis, MN. Swenbeck is a recipient of the 2013 Pew Fellowship in the Arts, and is represented by Fleisher Ollman Gallery.