A WALK ON THE DARK SIDE. C.J. Conner’s show called “Characters and Curiosities” is
currently on display at the V1 Gallery. Conner imagines mystical beings and
characters to life from her studio in Chetek.

C.J. Conner’s Characters and Curiosities hangs against the stripped brick and bare white walls of the Volume One Gallery like posters for a carnival, selling stories too good (or too bad) to be true. Conner has traveled all the way from farthest Chetek with her captivating show, a crew of fantastic characters, imagined reality, and real imagination.

The show includes almost 30 acrylic paintings, originals and gicleé reproductions, as well as several paper mache figures, all depicting either fantasy dramatic portraits, mystical constructions, or illusory realism.

Conner describes herself as a self-learning artist, having no background of formal training but now having more than 40 years experience in painting. She said she never took classes.

“I just figured that if you ever wanted to do something you just went out and did it,” she said.

And apparently, when self-learning to paint, the first 20 years are the hardest.

“I remember that was a milestone,” Conner said. “I was painting for about 20 years when I realized that I could pretty much get what I had in my mind by painting it.”

Conner now prefers to start paintings without a plan, following her brush to an ending that surprises even herself, saying, “It could be anything. It has no real meaning, it has a lot of different meanings.”

What’s in Conner’s mind that comes out in paint? Tricks and tales mostly, but if you go in with your eyes open, you can find truth in the cracks.

“I remember that was a milestone. I was painting for about twenty years when I realized that I could pretty much get what I had in my mind by painting it.” – C.J. Conner on her lifelong painting experience

In this show there are the obvious hucksters and showoffs, Troy the Evil Dummy hanging around with Horus the Evil Clock, The Red Queen ready to behead, the nameless drifter clown with bad teeth brandishing his razor, and the mysterious red box that may or may not hold the severed head of Zorgon, the alien prince.

There are also the more seductive lures such as “The Circle of Life” and “Hope,” paintings like Tarot cards gone entirely out of bounds tangling in a sinuous, dappled mysticism. There are games like “Work in Progress,” which Conner describes as “me painting me painting a picture of me painting my damaged butterfly collection,” “An Abstract Painting Makes its Escape” where representation and abstraction leap together in trompe l’oeil from the frame of paint onto the frame of wood, or the more straightforward “Cockroach Squaredance” which dares you to touch a light switch that may or may not be covered in creepy crawlies.

Then, finally, there is the oracle. Conner refers to Madame Esme, the fortune-teller in one of the carnival paintings as her alter ego. “She knows everything about everybody, but never tells them the truth, she just tells them what they want to hear,” she said.

The paintings along the back wall are intensely detailed hyper-seen nature paintings. Swirling with a joyful liveliness and casual, but clear order, their brilliant light and exuberance overlay small, rural northern Wisconsin scenes with a shiny candy coating. The insects, animals, puddles, broken windows and fields are illustrated with supreme care.

“I like to identify bugs and when I’m doing my animals I make sure that all the markings are correct,” Conner said.

 You could easily look at the tastiness of these paintings and stop there, but as in every carnival attraction, there is more to be seen than first meets the eye.

The nature scenes seems to be renderings of particular places. But they are just as much illustrations of the imagination as any of the other paintings.

“Oh, yes,” Conner said, cheerily. “None of my places are real.”

They are constructions, illusions, gathered together into Madame Conner’s crystal ball to dazzle your eyes while she calmly also lays out the cards predicting disease and death.

Every tired September leaf is meticulously rendered, every sliver of frost prickling a dead fern pokes into the perfection of a sweet swell of water.

Look in the center of “Ripples” and all the tapestried mat of colorful leaves and diamond raindrops fades out into a few colorless lines of naked tree limb reflected in a cold pool.

Under all the play and behind all the lights Conner is a painter very aware of the dependence summer has on winter, that life and death are not separate, but mingle and improve each other.

And she would never tell you that, unless that’s what you wanted to hear.

Characters and Curiosities will be at the Volume One Gallery, 205 N. Dewey St., through Aug. 30. To learn more about C.J. Conner, visit www.cjconner.com.