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End of A Wing
Jeremy Barnard
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When Jeremy Barnard initially entered the dark, deteriorated buildings of the place with sculptor Andy Chulyk, he had resolved to have no preconceptions, to be open to whatever it was that they found.
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There was no electricity (the asylum had been closed ten years before), and it was with the most rudimentary means of illumination that he made his way into the halls, tunnels, wards, treatment rooms, offices, and stranger spaces of indeterminate purpose.
As Barnard and Chulyk returned a number of times together they began, each in his own way, to explore not only the dank and forbidding desolation of the place and their childhood memories and feelings about it, but also to react to the tragedy of the human experience to which the place had been witness -- and to react as artists.
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Two Doors
Jeremy Barnard
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Blue Bath
Jeremy Barnard
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As Barnard absorbed the eerie, secretive atmosphere the initial desire he felt was to “humanize the mystery of this landmark, find images that showed that human beings lived there”.
But he also discovered something else...
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Before the asylum had transferred all its residents and closed its doors, the staff had decided to allow the patients to express themselves-- in pencil, crayon, and paint-- on the walls. Some of the pictures seemed childishly scrawled, others finely detailed. But all of them stood out in stark contrast to the dismal greyness, the piles of rubble, the rags that had been drapes, the broken glass, the stairs to nowhere.
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In photographing this art work, Barnard was unaware of a growing focus in the art wor ld initiated largely by Dubuffet, an artist who had been institutionalized early in the 20th century and who had drawn the attention of others to the vivid visions of the work of his fellow patients, many of them psuychotic, suicidal or worse.
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After the Movie
Jeremy Barnard
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What Barnard was however aware of-- and strove to reveal-- was the sad poignancy of the stories, hopes, and fears these pieces expressed, the enduring human spirit.
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Shortcake
Jeremy Barnard
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CLICK ON ANY IMAGE on this page for the full selection of Barnard's Danver's photographs, and details of price and size.
SEE ALSO: more work by Jeremy Barnard: visit the ARTISTS page.
PLEASE RETURN for more history and images of Danvers as we expand this page and others.
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