October is the month that darkness claims as its own. The days grow shorter, the nights colder, and seasonal totems appear: black cats, spiders, jack-o’-lanterns in every conceivable emotional state. Styrofoam tombstones dot yards where mummies, scarecrows, and ax murderers slump in shadowy corners. Horror classics run in marathons on TV. A certain giddiness prevails. Are you afraid of the dark? “Yes!” we scream, giggling and running headlong toward it.
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Coursing beneath our collective love for candy corn and cheap scares is a genuine attraction to the darker aspects of existence. We’re drawn to that which we can’t understand, the veiled and distant forms onto which light never truly shines; we entertain an impulse to step ever-so-slightly closer when instinct suggests we back away. It is to this gnawing little need that “A Stranger in Your Arms” softly whispers.
Devereaux achieves a layered sensory experience with the inclusion of taxidermy by Woolly Mammoth and an audiovisual installation by Wrekmeister Harmonies, And Then It All Came Down. Together, the work elevates “A Stranger in Your Arms” to the level of spectacle. But unlike Halloween, the unease it inspires may not pass once the calendar marks November 1.
Reception Sat 10/5, 7-9 PM Through 10/27 Comfort Station 2579 N. Milwaukee comfortstationlogansquare.org
