March Issue 2002
The Five Cent Fallen Colossus: An Installation And Drawings By George Jenne at Craven Allen Gallery in Durham, NC
The North Carolina State Fair inspired George Jenne to create a bizarre midway attraction of his own for his new show, The Five Cent Fallen Colossus, at Craven Allen Gallery in Durham, NC through Apr. 27. Jenne has transformed the gallery space so that visitors will be able to experience the meticulously crafted Colossus attraction for themselves, in all its surreal splendor, including a mechanized sculpture, The Nickel Shrink. In the drawings which accompany the Colossus, Jenne goes behind the scenes to show what he describes as "the guts of the carnival-a tangle of cable, hoses, bolts and pig iron that rests behind the frantic glow of each ride." Jenne's elegant, evocative ink on paper illustrations provide a larger context for the installation.
Jenne cites a variety of sources for his particular aesthetic, including "the hazy, noir settings of old Los Angeles; the eerily lush back roads of the Southeast, and the strange yet cozy images of horror films from the nineteen-thirties and forties. The world I am trying to create is uneasy and slightly discolored. This is the world in which I feel most at home. Its marvelous atmosphere makes me cringe, then makes me smile."
In his artist statement Jenne says of his work, "This show draws from the midway of the North Carolina State Fair. These drawings depict the guts of the carnival. A tangle of cable, hoses, bolts, and pig iron that rests behind the frantic glow of each ride. The installation is the seedy and weird attraction. It is not the image of the Colossus and the Nickel Shrink that is disturbing as much as it is their cheap fakery."
He continues, "I create my images because they make me comfortable. I am trying to describe a world that doesn't exist. One that is perfect in its detail and atmosphere. There is a frozen, plastic quality to my images. They are the toys that I could never have as a child and the places that were too terrifying to explore."
Jenne currently lives, draws and sculpts in Brooklyn, NY, where he works as a prop and model maker for television and film. He grew up in Chapel Hill and received a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. Jenne's short film The Belligerents has been shown in several film festivals, and he has exhibited across the country.
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