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I want to take something that's totally familiar, you know, something you automatically say, yes, that's classic.

That's beautiful.

I've seen that a million times, you know, and then I want it just key in on that just a little and then from there go totally off in an abstract or a surreal direction.

Nationally recognized artist Corbett Reynolds has worked in a variety of media, including neon, performance, and video.

His exhibit, titled Total Liberation of the Unconscious, depicts concrete heads in the image of the mythical Greek god Apollo.

I put a lot of metal in with the concrete or I'll put glass in it, like the one I did with crystal, I used pieces of actual crystal in the concrete so that kind of exposes at different places and then when I'm finishing it, you know, when I oxidize it and put the chemicals on, those things oxidize out real heavy or I get a lot a character from that.

The freedom is in all the different kind of objects that make your mind kind of think different things, you know, like, oh, this feels threatening or this feels...

Pleasant or this feels Exciting or I relate to that, you know it's amazing all the different things that I find that that are exciting in those heads and every different person will Find a different one that kind of oh I can relate to there or Or I even I don't relate to it.

You know, that's kind of frightening or it gives me a headache that kind Taking inspiration from tribal ultures and natural forces, Corbett created an installation for the March 1989 Short North Gallery Hub.

Drawing from an earlier 1987 work, Through My Eye, a combination of primal and modern forms are blended together.

I like to work with installation because it's totally unlimited.

I mean, I can use anything from light, sound, people.

There's no limits, and I find that's just wide open.

It gives me all the room in the world to be more creative.

When I started working on this piece, my whole premise was, I wanted to use the neon for the light source, But I was really kind of tired of just geometric neon shapes, lettering or circles, triangles, you know, the typical sine type neon things.

And I wanted to kind of somehow rather use that light since it's, you know, a beautiful light, but I wanted it to make it feel somewhat organic to relate to the branches.

To produce the effect he wanted, Corbett shaped the neon to the tree branches, twisting and flowing it through them.

In my first installation, I did, through my eye, I was trying to symbolize sort of a primal side of man, a sort of uniting force with the Earth itself and the branches, the people becoming fused together through light and color.

In the new installation, I would like to have the viewer take a journey, move through time or move through spiritual growth, sort of, a rebirthing type thing.

To symbolize that, I'm building a tunnel of the branches that the viewer, when they come, they'll get involved and have the same thing they had before with the primal side of it, but they'll be moving through this tunnel, walking through the tunnel, the car being kind of a part of that, you know, to symbolize journey or travel.

You With only an hour before the journey begins, human figures are painted in chameleon-like camouflage.

I select some people who have a background in performance art or dance, you know, and I've had good luck because they can move beautiful, but I really enjoy also using people who've never done anything like this.

I guess it's sort of like abstract performance or whatever, but, I think you get something from inside, you now, like how do they react to the environment they're in now that They're painted, they're in this light, they're a part of this piece.

So they have a whole new identity and it's just kind of a freedom I think.

I never really program them and say you should move like this or you do that.

I say do it from inside, you know, feel the piece, move with it.

Probably what the real essence of the piece is, is the freedom that once you walk through in this piece, you're involved in it and, you know, you're a part of it.

And for that amount of time that you're passing through, you know it's just a fantasy.

It's a spiritual experience.