Wendy's Cigarette

A collaborative exhibition featuring paintings by Heather Straka and installations & objects by Emily Hartley-Skudder. The collaboration began with Straka and Hartley-Skudder taking the mystery of Café Continental—an Edwardian seaside hotel that burnt down in 1909—as a hazy starting point. Both artists had been re-watching Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, considering how to bring the spirit of the 'Overlook Hotel' into their work. The exhibition indulges the artists' shared love of film, artifice and the haunted aura of old interiors. Through regular conversations, the artists cross-pollinated ideas around colonial expansion, historical buildings, and architectural disasters. The resulting exhibition flattens eras and merges narratives, intertwining the artists' distinct sensibilities. Straka's unearthly characters occupy oil paintings within Hartley-Skudder's installations, trapped in an eerie time-warp. The title pays tribute to actress Shelley Duvall and references the little details that add suspense in horror films.