By Chris Rotolo
SHREWSBURY – “Is everybody in? The ceremony is about to begin.”
This murky couplet, plucked from the prose of Jim Morrison’s 1970 performance piece titled “Celebration of the Lizard King,” serves as a properly provocative introduction to Paul Hansen’s solo exhibition “The Doors” at Guild of Creative Art in Shrewsbury.
A recent interview with The Two River Times allowed Hansen to reflect about his personal portrayal of the band and how the image developed over time.
“I remember sitting in my room, fixed on the lyrics and listening to ‘The End,’ ” recalled Hansen, referencing the closing number of The Doors’ 1967 self-titled debut full-length collection. “My mom burst through the door screaming something about paganism. There was a forbiddenness about the music that was so alluring.”
“But as I got older and continued to revisit the music, I realized it was much different than when I found it at 15 years old,” Hansen said. “The hero worship was gone because I began to realize the tragedy of it all. The Doors are one of the greatest bands of all time. The music brought a lot of joy to fans. And Morrison was one of the great writers of his time. But he made the people around him suffer. He put them through hell. And ultimately, he left us at 27.”
Hansen’s exhibit conveys this conceptual juxtaposition by displaying a kaleidoscopic flow of playful movements that give way to brooding color palettes and frightening reveals. Further exploration of the shadowy corners of his canvases exposes an array of snarling humanoid figures and other ominous creatures hidden in plain sight. The joy and the tragedy. The whimsical façade and what lies beneath in the darkness.
The multimedia showcase also functions to highlight the network of artistic influences that led to the band’s formation and the creations that stemmed from the collective’s brand of acidic blues.
The group began to take shape in 1965 when Morrison had a chance encounter on the Venice Beach boardwalk with keyboardist Ray Manzarek, a former class-mate at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. After successful writing sessions, Manzarek recruited his two brothers, Rick and Jim, and drummer John Densmore, to join a project Morrison named The Doors. The moniker was a nod to the Aldous Huxley book “The Doors of Perception,” a title in itself derived from a selection lifted out of the William Blake publication “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.”
“If the doors of perception were cleansed,” Blake wrote, “everything would appear to man as it is: infinite.”
Eventually Manzarek’s siblings departed the band, making way in late 1965 for the final piece of The Doors classic lineup, guitarist Robby Krieger.
“In all of my shows I try to have a cohesive narrative,” Hansen said. “I like connecting the dots and showing the synchronicity of ideas. In this case, I’m exploring all of these writers and how they stood on the shoulders of a previous giant and passed the baton to the next one.”
Hansen said one piece in particular that illustrates this deeper connection through time is the design he has applied to a surf board, a peculiar canvas that unites the notions of The Doors’ humble Venice Beach beginnings, the 1899 Joseph Conrad novella “Heart of Darkness” – which Morrison cited as a favorite – and the 1979 Francis Ford Coppola film “Apocalypse Now,” based upon Conrad’s novella.
“In part, I am trying to tell a story. Yes, this exhibit is a payment of tribute to The Doors and Jim Morrison. I didn’t want to single him out, but you can’t help it when you’re telling this story. Morrison always stands out. But with all that said, I hope those who visit will approach this with an open mind and take away from it whatever they want. As long as it makes them think, then I’ve accomplished what I wanted to,” Hansen said.
“The Doors” will run through Sept. 28. An official opening reception will be held from 3 to 5 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 11. Regular viewing hours will be from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturdays.
The article originally appeared in the September 8 – 14, 2022 print edition of The Two River Times.
