3 minute read
KRYSTII MELAINE
Melaine
“Flamingos are such elegant birds, with their beautifully sinuous curving necks and pink feathers making them one of my favorites to paint. These two face in opposite directions but are of one mind. Where one goes, the other and their entire flock goes. They all rouse from sleep, seek food, then preen and socialize at the same time. Seeing a huge flock of thousands take off and fly together or display together is an amazing sight. I wonder how they all decide to partake of the same activity at once. Is it a meeting of minds in some silent communication system? We may never know, but we can enjoy their colorful presence in our world.” — Krystii
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John Searles is always looking for a story he can tell, often on the page to his many readers. One of America’s bestselling novelists, he has published four books to date, including his most recent, Her Last Affair. Indicative of his ability to find or invent stories, Searles says of this drawing by the artist Justin Liam O’Brien, “When I look at this work showing three figures, I see the same person — as a young man, a middle-aged man, and an older man. When I mentioned this to my husband, Thomas, he insisted that the drawing shows three people. But I still see the same person picking reeds at the shoreline at different stages of his life.”
Searles recalls coming upon O’Brien’s art at the Monya Rowe Gallery in New York City — and being instantly engaged. “I knew that Justin was a young gay artist, and that interested me in particular. I love the storytelling that goes on in his scenes. I’m also a sucker for anything blue and beautiful and peaceful,” which aptly describes the Sag Harbor locale where Searles and his theater-director husband live much of the time. In that bucolic, decidedly literary town on Long Island’s East End, the couple and their dog, Ruby, walk daily by the calm, blue bay.
As for his increasing familiarity with O’Brien’s growing oeuvre, Searles says,
“When something or someone gets my interest, I go into a deep dive of researching. The more I saw of his work, the more I responded to his aesthetic.” As another example of Searles’s penchant for research, it was while he kept passing an abandoned drive-in theater in upstate New York that the idea for Her Last Affair arose. Upon learning the drive-in’s history and the roster of films once shown there, Searles invented a storyline so compelling that it reads with the speed and immediacy of a movie. “I think all good writing is cinematic, and because this book is set at an old theater, I started a story about film and I kept writing.”
While Searles’s novels are often categorized as thrillers, that description is too facile. “Each book is its own thing with original characters, and the process of developing plot is always trial and error. I think of my books as genre hybrids — part character study, part thriller, part noir fiction, a study of the human condition.”
And so it makes perfect sense that Searles would respond viscerally to O’Brien’s paintings, many of which convey narratives with often erotic undertones. “Phrygian Gates, which is more subtle than O’Brien’s others, makes me think of Sag Harbor, which is serene and peaceful, but which also has a lonely feeling to it. I often have a bit of a lonely feeling. There’s a melancholy about this painting.”
As for his writing process, Searles admits, “I’m really an eavesdropper. My sister gave me a T-shirt saying, ‘Careful or you’ll wind up in my novel.’ I’m always noticing things.” He definitely noticed Justin Liam O’Brien’s art.
2022 Best of America National Juried Exhibition
The Wilcox Gallery
1975 N US Highway 89
Jackson, WY
September 8-October 8, 2022
Opening Reception September 16, 5-7pm
Visit www.noaps.org for details and events
Exhibitions For 2023
2023 Best of America Small Works
National Juried Exhibition
Mary Williams Gallery
5311 Western Ave. #112
Boulder, CO
May 18-June 17, 2023
Opening Reception: May 18, 5-8pm
2023 Best of America National Juried Exhibition
The Principle Alexandria
208 King Street
Alexandria, VA
August 11-September 10, 2023
Opening Reception: August 11, 6-8:30pm
Spring International Online Exhibition
Entries open January 1, 2023
Fall International Online Exhibition
Entries open July 1, 2023
Associate Online Exhibition
Entries open April 17, 2023
SEPTEMBER 15 - OCTOBER 22, 2022