The two works installed in the Houghton Gallery for Amos Scully’s exhibition Illusory characterize the artist’s efforts to challenge our assumptions about what we perceive.

Lotus Strike Out must be physically negotiated by visitors.  It pierces the gallery space jutting into the hallway in a curious and ominous gesture. The funnel-like form and rough hewn wood hint at possible utilitarian purpose, hint at work, but offer no clear answers as to why this object confronts us.  The other end of Lotus Strike Out challenges the viewer again, this time with almost white satin spreading across the floor. Its radiant preciousness is accentuated by its contrast to the wood and by the fact that one has to work not to step on it despite an urge to touch it. The ducking, stepping over and stepping aside required to consider this piece make it interactive. One realizes that Lotus Strike Out while ominous also depends on our consent to protect its pristine and precarious existence.

Delvage, is a vignette of suspended objects.  A horse leg, a plow and a shoe: a group of items that comfortably set up a narrative about the past but take on deeper and more diverse meanings because of the materials the artist has used and scenario that the artist has constructed.  The sewn sheer fabric objects are provocative. They are emotionally and physically inviting to the viewer. There is a strong desire to reach out and touch them, yet at the same time they suggest something that is gone.  Like finding an empty, fragile snakeskin in the grass they are within sight but beyond reach. Furthermore their lack of structure means that they must be held up, suspended from tired wooden forms for us to view. The scenario is nostalgic yet artificial.  It is fictional and theatrical. The viewer is given an opportunity to contemplate what is real.

This artist embraces the illusory nature of perception and the lengths at which we go to enable our illusions.  Viewing the work of Amos Scully is being invited to peek behind the curtain.  When one glimpses the artist as stage manager (sandbags) and puppeteer (strings) one may be emboldened to investigate how all human perception is fictionalized and emotionally theatrical.