Cut paper silhouettes by Rachel TonThat and Chelsey Pettyjohn hung with thread, 2024
A wolf lurks in the underbrush with near-silent footfalls. The witch waits in her lair, sharpening a knife. Silver-tongued monsters whisper enticements to travelers from beside waiting stewpots. For when knowledge runs dry, imagination fills the gaps, and it is only in the world of children’s stories that fear and violence can so quickly give way to mirth. This is a limitless place where death has no sway, and where reality is suspended long enough to believe that no matter what might happen, good will come to those who wait.
Box of Delights builds on the theme of children’s stories and references antique bestiaries and shadow play, using light to evoke classical methods of narrative by the fireside. The cut paper figures of this installation are dormant; waiting to be brought to life, to be given breath and movement, to be animated by imagination.
For their time at Chashama, Rachel TonThat and Chelsey Pettyjohn present a duology of installations that references the qualities of magical realism of children’s books from the 1800s and early 1900s.