Childhood fairy tales, told as soft bedtime stories, sometimes harbor something deeper, according to Spartanburg artist Bailie, who along with fellow artist Kris Inman will bring art together in “Once Upon a Time,” an exhibition March 31 through April 25 in Gallery III of the Artists Collective | Spartanburg.
The exhibition brings together paintings by Bailie and mixed media works by Inman, drawing inspiration from classic storybook characters, nursery rhymes and folklore.
“Fairy tales are often remembered as gentle bedtime stories, softened with time and retold with comfort in mind,” Bailie says. “Yet beneath their familiar rhythms and childhood nostalgia lies something far stranger – stories born from shadow, mystery and unease. ‘Once Upon a Time’ explores that darker undercurrent.”
An artist’s reception will be held from 5 to 8 p.m. Thursday, April 16, as part of Spartanburg ArtWalk. The reception and exhibition viewing are free and open to the public.
Bailie continues: “These storybook figures – once meant to guide, warn or enchant – are reimagined through a lens that leans into the unsettling, the eerie and the psychologically curious.”
For him, the work “emerges from a stream of haunting imagery that seems to live constantly in the mind’s background. These images surface in distorted fairy tale characters, unsettling atmospheres and narratives that feel both familiar and strange.
“Rather than illustrating stories as they were told, the paintings invite viewers into the dreamlike spaces where imagination and memory twist the narrative into something darker,” he adds.
Inman’s mixed media pieces further expand this world, Bailie says, “layering materials and textures to build visual stories that feel unearthed rather than simply created. Together, the works transform recognizable tales into something new – an exploration of the uncanny hiding within childhood myths.
“‘Once Upon a Time’ invites viewers to step beyond the comfort of the storybook and into the strange spaces that linger just beneath the surface of imagination,” Bailie says.
For more about Bailie, go to www.bailiestudio.com.