
DATE: Sunday, November 2, 1997              TAG: 9711040526

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E7   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Art review

SOURCE: BY TERESA ANNAS, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:  131 lines

PAINTINGS, PUPPETS CONVEY ``FAIRY'' TALE

THE MYTH MAKERS of earlier days were the counterparts of our artists, said Joseph Campbell for the famed book and video series ``The Power of Myth.''

A mesmerizing example of Campbell's concept can now be viewed in Portsmouth. Virginia Beach painter Jean Peacock and Portsmouth artist/art therapist Matthew Bernier co-wrote a fairy tale, then fleshed out the story with paintings and marionettes.

The highly ambitious project, ``The Door of Good: A Fairy Tale,'' is on display at the Arts Center of the Portsmouth Museums.

Peacock and Bernier got started about two years ago, passing a developing story line between them until they were satisfied with it, explained curator Gayle Paul.

Then Peacock began creating a series of oil paintings on canvas to illustrate the story. Meanwhile, Bernier built his version of the tale's characters - bird people from the apparently medieval village of Aveland. The place name is derived from avis, which is Latin for bird, omen or portent, all of which figure into the yarn.

Neither Peacock - a surname the artist assumed in recent years - nor Bernier broadcast why they chose to work with a fairy tale as a basis. They do not interpret the story, explain where it came from or tell how they felt about it. Entering the main gallery, what we have is the tale, 40-plus paintings and 15 puppets installed on black pedestals.

We also have taped original music (composed by Bernier, Theresa Dougherty, Lisa Sellers and John Ingersoll) that acts as a soundtrack for our own responses.

The tale can be read in its entirety in a brochure and in snippets on the gallery walls next to related paintings. Visitors also can listen to an audio tape of the tale read by actors Bentley Anderson and Shirley Hurd, who narrated it live at the preview reception last month.

It opens: ``Once upon a time, there was a faraway kingdom called Aveland, whose inhabitants were bird people.'' Instantly, we know we're in fairy tale land - an exotic ``other'' realm with a king and queen in a castle, acrobats, feasts, peasants and a happy ending.

It's also very Brothers Grimm - a so-called ``household tale'' with gory scenes, from a battered maid left for dead in the forest to the cannibalistic dismemberment of degenerate royals by some nasty birds in a feeding frenzy.

Our heroine is Luscinia, the daughter of peasants who give her away to King Tyrannus and Queen Histrionica when they pop into town for a feast day.

Luscinia embarks on a kind of hero's journey, falling into the spoiled self-indulgence of her newfound family and then regaining her higher values by the tale's end.

It is, as advertised by center staff, a fairy tale for adults. Luscinia might be called Lascivious at one point, as Peacock depicts her lounging wantonly in a skimpy negligee.

But I don't think that's what the duo meant by dubbing it for grown-ups. The suggestion is that this is an adult moral, a story with a message about living. On one level, it's about the choices we make in our lives and their natural repercus-sions.

Some scholars of fairy tales consider them a branch of mythology, and full of instructive significance.

In mythology, hero adventures can take many forms. One sort begins when something has been taken from the hero. In this story, the king and queen have stolen a necklace given to Luscinia by her mother. As the girl's only remaining connection to her blood family, the necklace is precious to her.

She finally locates it in a room behind the forbidden jeweled door. Once inside, she also spies a plain wooden door, the door of good. After she opens it, a bright light pours in. Then magical things happen to Luscinia's world. Peace, family and goodness are restored.

Now for the art. Peacock's approach is admirable, in that she managed to capture the feeling of various dramatic moments in the tale without sacrificing the painting. Clearly, she took pains to avoid obvious images.

For one painting, ``She Warns Luscinia Never to Go Near or Try to Open the Jeweled Door,'' Peacock does not show the title's action and characters. Instead, she places the door in the far distance and has the foreground enlivened with the royal staff whispering among themselves. A pair of maids stare in the door's direction.

Later in the narrative is a large painting of a masked ball. Unlike an earlier picture of a peasant's feast, where participants are joyously linked in a composition that spins with the dancers, figures at the ball are not so connected. Dissonance and jagged edges make up this more modernist image, where the guests are like separate cutouts arranged against a smoky black background.

Still later, for a painting called ``Luscinia Has Many Lovers,'' she is portrayed as a glamour figure on the arms of a gold chain-wearing playboy. The couple appear larger than life, as in portraits by paparazzi - shades of Princess Di.

The exhibit moves clockwise around the gallery and starts with the introduction of seven main characters with small portraits. From there, Peacock alternated between establishing shots, as a filmmaker would call them, of the town or the castle landscape, and dramatic scenes.

She didn't drastically alter her painting style for this series. Peacock has long worked with the figure in a stylized, semi-abstract fashion. Here, her palette could be called jewel-toned, the canvases glistening with varnish.

The shapes of birds - particularly, their claws and beaks - appear to have provided a dynamic compositional thrust to these works. These are smart paintings, redolent of so much modernist art, including Matisse and Picasso.

Bernier's marionettes are not strictly modeled after Peacock's paintings. They are finely constructed puppets, handmade with dyed old fabrics and other materials. Of course, as with ethnic masks meant for ritual ceremonies, such objects come alive when in action.

It's a shame ``The Door of Good'' has to end Dec. 14. If it continued just one more week - until Dec. 21, winter solstice - the closing party could be a ``door of the gods'' celebration.

The zodiacal event honors the return of the sun, or longer days. It means more light, ever associated with good. ILLUSTRATION: Photo

``Guests Arrive From Faraway Kingdoms'' by Jean Peacock is part of

``The Door of Good: A Fairy Tale.''

Graphic

WANT TO GO?

What: ``The Door of Good: A Fairy Tale,'' featuring paintings by

Jean Peacock, marionettes by Matthew Bernier

Where: The Arts Center of the Portsmouth Museums, High and Court

streets

When: through Dec. 14

Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, 1 to 5 p.m.

Sunday