Jay Tyrrell: Wind Army

Please join us for the opening of Wind Army, Friday March 12th, 6-9 PM at 18 Hands Gallery, 249B W. 19th Street in the Houston Heights. Meet San Francisco area photographer, Jay Tyrrell and enjoy light refreshments in a surprising and evocative ambience. The exhibition will continue through April 24th.

Images: Top - The Pod; Above - The Generals; Below - The Scouts

 

 

 

 

 

Jay Tyrrell has created an understated yet epic masterpiece in Wind Army.
Not content to create a simple panoramic landscape, Tyrrell has the vision of David Lean and the intrigue of Stephen Spielberg.

Using H.G. Wells War of the Worlds as his storyline and wind turbines as his actors, Jay’s photographs entertain and seduce us. Much can be said about his possible intent, to remind us of the power of energy, the harnessing of nature, the strategy of warfare, but in the end it is purely a re-mastering of a classic story. Science meets Science Fiction. In restructuring this legendary tale of panic and fear Jay has managed to craft a contemporary narrative of a timeless masterpiece with wit and subtle humor.

Wind farms loom large over the landscape. In clean architectural lines, these tall sentries quietly keep watch over the landscape, its inhabitants and watch the skies for intruders. Jay merges these shapes, sinuous lines where landscape ends and turbine begins. Long winding roads, rolling hills, open skies all leading to what unseen forces lay beyond the edges of his frame.

Titling his images in military terms, following the structure and order of the corps, Tyrrell has humanized these massive steel structures, faceless metal, like tin men, marching to the beats of their commanders. Like leading lemmings off a cliff, these soldiers head into, run from or stand guard against the invading unseen forces. These elegant reminders of a power structure have an omnipotent presence, and show of internal and external strength and fortitude.
It is our imagination, as well as the power of suggestion that is the most intoxicating ingredient in this equation. Suspending belief, these are not simple landscapes. We bring our own stories and visions to Jay’s fanciful narrative. In two generations of urban storytelling, in the replaying of a scratchy crackling radio broadcast, in our dreams and memories of Woking and Grovers Corners, we see and believe that not only have aliens landed, they have taken over, and are quietly awaiting further instruction.

Crista Dix, Curator