Home > Around Town > A Shared Life on Display: Pamela de Marris at Artlink

A Shared Life on Display: Pamela de Marris at Artlink

By Jack Cantey

Fort Wayne Reader

2007-04-24

The idea of an artist’s spouse playing the role of the muse is well founded in art history. René Magritte had Georgette. Harry Callahan had Eleanor. And, for the past three decades, photographer Pamela de Marris has had James Meadows.

24 large color and black-and-white prints of Meadows (along with friends and family) are currently on view at Artlink (437 E. Berry St.). This collection of images from different series, brought together especially for this exhibition, capture the relationship between de Marris and Meadows since the late 1970s.

“These images,” de Marris states, “visually describe my changing interpretations and emotional views of the different periods [James and I] have gone through with our children and each other.”

33 year ago, when de Marris lived in Massachusetts, she had what she calls a “prophetic dream” in which she approached a large, white building and encounters a tall figure with fluffy, white hair in a long, white coat. A few years later, de Marris moved to Indianapolis found a job at the IU School of Medicine, which happened to be housed in a large, white building. It was here that Déjà vu struck the artist.

“One afternoon…” de Marris states, “a tall white-haired man dressed in a long, flowing lab coat walked in front of me. This was the first time I realized that Dr. Meadows would play a significant role in my life.”

The artist’s instinct 30 years ago became a reality. During that time, de Marris has consistently used Meadows as a subject for a wide range of photographs. She calls this collected body of works a “personal pictorial diary about his life.” This exhibition of excellent and varied prints from unaltered (though sometimes combined) medium format negatives, however, creates a diary that is far from ordinary.

While de Marris’s photos of her husband are far from candid, documentary studies, there are several images in the show that have a fly-on-the-wall feel to them. Howie in the Hills is a black-and-white silver print from 1986 that shows us a meditative and lonely Meadows soaked by diffused sunlight while sitting upright in bed. More recent nude, color shots of Meadows shaving and sitting on a chair simultaneously show how deftly de Marris can combine lighting expertise with emotional potency. Several works, such as the joyous Bass Master, also take place on Meadow’s fishing boat, an obviously sacred place for him and his family.

The bulk of the exhibition, though, focuses on posed, fantastical imagery with Meadows as the constant. These often lavishly lighted, decorated, and costumed images range from the humorous (Mad Scientist and Chickenman) to the emotional (John and Jim, Cullison’s Pond and Salvation of Mortality) to the contemplative (Swimming, perhaps the show’s strongest composition). Family and friends often make appearances in these photos, such as in a trio of black-and-white prints from the mid-1980s or in “Puppetmaster,” in which the artist herself poses with her husband for an image that speaks to the question of who truly is in control of a relationship.

De Marris states that these photographs “honestly represent James Meadows”…and that they share her “intense feelings regarding him, which range from happiness to anguish.”

After viewing this show, I left the gallery with several thoughts about the artist’s human subject and the nature of relationships. I realized that James Meadows must be a ferociously patient man and that he must really love his wife. I also realized that all successful relationships – romantic and platonic, alike – are, at their cores, beautiful collaborations.

Pamela de Marris’s photographs are on view through May 16. The Artlink Hallway Gallery features work from Memorial Park 7th and 8th graders.