June 13 – July 25, 2009

Opening Reception:
June 13, Saturday, 7 p.m. – 10 p.m.

Joseph Campbell said that myths are public dreams, while dreams are private myths. Painter Mark Dancey is producing strangely hybrid works that combine personal narratives with traditional myths. For his current series of round oil paintings of acrobatic nudes he studied the great ceiling painters of the past and has adopted their strategies for rendering the body in forced perspective. When we see figures from the low vantage point at which Dancey presents them, they seem to loom and float above us, and naturally appear in a mythical light. With a few symbolic props, Dancey's divine aerialists each inhabit a space that stretches to a three hundred and sixty degree horizon and invoke associations that are at once religious, erotic, and puzzling.

Taking its title from a Spanish word for an archaic theological science devoted to the study of flying beings, Volandismo is an exhibit of works that freely mix myths and dreams, mysteries and revelations.

Painter and illustrator Mark Dancey's work has appeared in many consumer magazines including Spin, Esquire, and Details, as well as on CD covers for rock bands. Also a publisher of and major contributor to Motorbooty Magazine in the late 1980s through the 1990's, Dancey's work has been shown in galleries across the country. Dancey lives and works in Detroit.

Volandismo opens June 13, 2009 at Re:View Contemporary Gallery.