Wayne White: BIG LECTRIC FAN TO KEEP ME COOL WHILE I SLEEP

by Shiraz Ahmed

Even if you don't know the name Wayne Wright, you probably know his work. Wright was the creative mind behind Emmy-awards winning puppet design in Pee-Wee's Play House, set design for music videos such as Smashing Pumpkins "Tonight" and Peter Gaberials "Big Time," and numerous other television shows and advertisments. He is an artist of all mediums- from set design to puppetry, cartooning to illustration, oil paintings to bronze sculptures. His work of painting humorous phrases on top of thrift-store lithographs has gained him the auspicious title of "weirdest landscape painter in America."
This September, Wright's intends to call up his history in puppetry, painting, and sculpture, and create an installation at Rice Gallery. The title of the piece, Big Lectric Fan To Keep Me Cool While I Sleep, is a homage to country singer George Jones's song, "Ragged but Right." "I was thinking of hot Houston nights before air conditioning and the young Geoge Jones in this city- full of crazy artistic passion and making music history," says Wright. The installation will be a fifteen-foot puppet head resembling a young, flat-topped Jones. It will be sleeping on its side, surrounded by floor-to-ceiling lettering. "It's a roadside attraction, a museum relic of a lost word, and a big weird toy still in its box."
The installation will be available for viewing from Sept 8 - Oct 18 at Rice Gallery.