Clara & Dedalus Wainwright: Offshoot Collaborations

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3 years ago, we (Clara & Dedalus) started discussing the possibility of a collaboration. Over the years we had worked together in different ways, but this was to be the first time where we met as equals, rather than one of us contributing to an idea the other had initiated. It took us a few months to settle upon something that felt fruitful and provocative. Inspired by a fantastical family invention (developed in mirthful collaboration with dear friend Pratap Talwar) - The Elder Luge: an amusement park ride on which seniors claim their exit with style and thrill by riding a roller coaster through a ring of fire that cremates them and scatters their ashes over an ocean bay. We saw an overlap in these two stories which both take modern amusements (luxury cruises and roller coasters) and use them as an aesthetic vehicle to laugh through our end-of-life anxieties and imagine an alternate relation to the complexities of mortality.

This amusements-embodying-anxieties idea inspired Clara to propose a gallery exhibit that could include other creative families and when we invited Mags and Thyra to collaborate, they were excited to work in parallel on the project. Early discussions clarified a 4-way interest in the collaboration between generations of a family as the uniting principle. Mags & Thyra felt the Last Supper/Elder Luge idea was a Wainwright project, so we agreed to develop it on our own.

Getting to work in 2020, the two of us met for intensive sessions as often as life allowed. We searched for approaches that could be shaped from both of our creative sensibilities, and had many starts and stops, until we reexamined an old family favorite. At least since Dedalus’ childhood, after dinner drawings of Exquisite Corpses (inspired by the Surrealists) has been a family tradition shared with Bill Wainwright and Dedalus’ sister Caroline (plus any dinner guests). So the two of us started a series of expressive character portraits using the chance based “what came before is a secret until the image is complete” technique. The early portraits from 2020 closely followed the rules while the later portraits used the process for the initial generation of images that could then be re-considered and developed as a complete composition.  

Clara brought her exuberant collaged fabric methods and Dedalus introduced paper, charcoal and paint. This range of materials show up in different combinations across the images and introduce questions of unity and division in individual works. We each borrowed methods from the other, enriching the boundaries of possession. Through out the series, we found challenge and inspiration in the juxtapositions of our image making impulses, and are excited to introduce this cast of eccentric characters to the world.

When we turned our efforts to the Elder Luge, the call and response aspect of the Exquisite Corpses was an excellent momentum generator. One of us would create an environment, the other would inhabit it with some counterpoint and then we both could tune it. Over time, we reimagined and reinvented the Elder Luge, which manifests alternately as a roller coaster, a maze or a field of brass horns, with the cremating ring of fire taking the animate form of a dragon embodying its own chance like intentions. In this series, Clara introduced threshold-like fiberglass screen as a background material that expanded the Elder Luge and its existential possibilities.

The process has shown us myriad ways in which we share understandings, and many where we diverge.  At times the process has been a struggle, but both of us have found much inspiration and something solid to cultivate together during these crazy times.