Legendary guitarist and iconoclast John Fahey is best known for his adventurous catalog of music. From 1959 until the time of his death in 2001 Fahey released upwards of 40 albums exploring the territory of blues, classical, hillbilly, spirituals, folk, musique concrete, rock, and noise. He was a... Read more
Legendary guitarist and iconoclast John Fahey is best known for his adventurous catalog of music. From 1959 until the time of his death in 2001 Fahey released upwards of 40 albums exploring the territory of blues, classical, hillbilly, spirituals, folk, musique concrete, rock, and noise. He was a figure like none other, a true visionary. In 1959, long before the term “independent label” hit the mainstream, he self-released his first album by pressing up 100 copies and selling them at the local gas station where he worked (shortly thereafter forming his own independent label Takoma Records). Lesser known is the fact
that he was a fantastic writer in addition to being a hyper productive and explosive painter toward the latter portion of his life. This summer, AVA and John Andrew are extremely pleased to present the furiously beautiful paintings of John Fahey.
Pulling inspiration from the ‘French Primitive’, untutored painters, Fahey often referred to his music as ‘American Primitive’. The same alluring, raw, roots, mysterious, power, grit, obscure, industrial, ambient, epic, and tranquilizing aesthetics that one finds in Fahey’s music and his writings are equally present in his paintings. The 90’s proved to be a decade of regeneration for Fahey. Though he struggled with certain health problems, he was brimming with experimentation. Collaborating with noise artists and improvisational performers of the alternative movement, Fahey began to channel a new outlet for experimentation which included his return to painting; a bent he abandoned when he took up the guitar.
Fahey’s works are evocative of action painters and abstract expressionists. He painted on found poster board and discarded spiral notebook paper. His painting studio floated from motel bed to motel bed and eventually ended up on the bed of his rental home in Salem, OR; occasionaly painting with anti-freeze in the garage. He worked with tempera, acrylic, spray paint, and magic marker.
