In group show, sequential artists tell a story.
Two narratives are laid out on the wall. They follow at first familiar forms, a plucky young person setting out on a quest. But they quickly take an unusual turn. Within four panels, they’ve ended on cliffhangers that feel, in a strange way, almost existential.“Who is this?” one protagonist asks.“Who are you?” the other says. Laying them out in parallel adds to the fun. It points out the repetition. Are they just iterations of the same story? (Are most stories just iterations of previous stories?) Is there a moment when these story lines might come together? Or is this all there is?
Pebble Stone’s The Prince and the Magic Lake and Fable are part of“eMOTION,” running now at the Ely Center of Contemporary Art at 51 Trumbull St. through Nov. 5. Curated by Xinyi Liu and Rebekah Church, the exhibition features the work of 30 artists and“showcases the signature possibilities of sequential arts, encompassing the progression from still images to moving images, evolving from single frames to multiple frames,” the curators write in an accompanying statement.
