Harry Gould Harvey IV & Samantha Durand at Alyssa Davis Gallery

Artists: Harry Gould Harvey IV & Samantha Durand

Exhibition title: EARTH CRISIS

Venue: Alyssa Davis Gallery, New York, US

Date: October 13 – December 2, 2018

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and Alyssa Davis Gallery, New York

News Anchor: This has been a summer of frightening animals in Rhode Island—a piranha in Coventry, an alligator in Lincoln, and now an unknown scary creature in Portsmouth. Whatever it was, was so big and so scary, a Fall River couple thought they were going to die. It’s a story you’ll see only here on Eyewitness News, a couple joins us now with their amazing ordeal.

We haven’t heard anything quite like this around here before, imagine swimming mindlessly in the late afternoon sun when all of a sudden out of nowhere a huge horrifying creature roughly 15 feet long rocks your world.

A Tuesday afternoon here at Teddy’s beach in Portsmouth—what happened gives new meaning to this danger sign.

(woman sobbing)

Man: Still hard for her. She went to a counselor to talk to a counselor.

It was low tide and Rachel Carney was out beyond the danger sign floating on her back relaxing when big trouble struck.

Woman: I turned around I heard a hissing, a hissing sound, so I stopped, I looked beside me, now all I seen was a face come up with these big teeth and I just remember the face being like shape like a basketball n the face went in like kind of sucked in and then was squared off then had all white and kept swimming around me it’s rubbed up against my leg so I just stopped and ‘tended like I wasn’t moving. That’s when it rubbed up went down kept going around me-

It rubbed up against your leg?

Woman: It rubbed up against my leg-

It touched you?

Woman: It touched me. That’s how I knew it was scaly.

Man: Scaly!

Woman: Like scales because I felt the scales plus I seen the face. So I started swimming away I started yelling ‘Danny help me somethin’s chasing me!’

Rachel Carney’s fiance Dennis Vasconcelos had been fishing with a buddy on these rocks. He raced into the water.

Man: It’s gonna getter. I grabbed her by the ass sor rear end and I grabbed her like that I whipped her in like that over her head I says, I whipped her in, I says Rachel, just swim, don’t turn around no matter what you hear right. Now I stood there and the things going like around me and stuff all right and I can see how big it is n stuff and it’s gigantic okay it has scales on it and stuff now all of a sudden for me to you away this big head comes up honest ta God it’s like a foot- a basketball, it’s like this big okay it comes up and it’s got these fangs like my fingers right the first this many in the bottom and about two or three at the top close layers inside okay and it’s like blackish on the top a little bit and it’s got a couple of scales that you can see and stuff and you can see a white starting under its neck and and it shoots water out of it’s nose right and out of its mouth it goes like this to me:

ehhhhhhHHh

and it’s spittin the water out you know like it’s gonna kill me ya know what I mean.

The group thinks the creature was attracted to blood from a bloody injury on Joey Mellos’ leg. Joey was out in the water as he is right now cleaning his leg.

Joey, how much blood was there?

Joey: I bled for about an hour and a half and, an it just wouldn’t stop.

Woman: I will not ever go in salt water again cuz I am that scared. I thought I was dead that day. Honest , I, eh…(inaudible). I thought I was dead, I thought I was a goner.

Man: At first I thought it was an eel, okay cuz it was, when it was rollin first right it would roll and you would see the white and stuff but right when it got to chase her it went like this (swimming arm motion), a little bit like this you know what I mean? A hump or something, it’s almost like a ah-barracuda. Something like that aight? Ah –

You’re still in the moment, right now, two days later, you’re still in this moment aren’t you?

Man: I’m flipped over this, I went to bed, I’ve been goin to bed with things grabbing me, wrapping around my neck, choking, fighting underground and everythin.

Still a mystery what the creature was–state environment agents checked out the scene today and found nothing so the best guess comes from marine experts we checked with, they figured it may have been some type of alien invasive species that migrated here with a warm gulf current. Mother, Mother Ocean.

Transcribed from Mother_Ocean.mp4

Harry Gould Harvey IV (b. 1991, Fall River). Lives and works in Tiverton, RI. Recent exhibitions include Amen, Thanks Computer God! in collaboration with Jesse Sullivan, Freddy, Harris, New York, 2018; Prudence, Patience, Hope & Despair, Motel, Brooklyn, New York, 2018; Harry Gould Harvey IV curated by Species (Erin Jane Nelson and Jason Benson), Atlanta Contemporary, Atlanta, Georgia, 2018; A Divine Image, Chicken Coop Contemporary, Portland, Oregon, 2017. Upcoming solo exhibition in December 2018 with Chicken Coop Contemporary at NADA Miami.

Samantha Durand (b.1988, Providence). Lives and works in Portsmouth, RI.

Samantha Durand, Untitled, 2015, Collected bones from Aquidneck Island, hot glue, steel, 11 x 7 x 5 in.

Samantha Durand, Untitled, 2015, Collected bones from Aquidneck Island, hot glue, steel, 12 x 6 x 2 in.

Harry Gould Harvey IV & Samantha Durand, EARTH CRISIS, 2018, exhibition view, Alyssa Davis Gallery, New York

Harry Gould Harvey IV, Grave Goods / Radical Empathy, 2018, Oriented strand board, multi density fiberboard, foraged black walnut from the Newport mansions, foraged clay from Swan’s Island, thorns stolen from the Citibank estate, & ancient sinker cyprus, 24.5 x 17 x 6 in.

Harry Gould Harvey IV, Putting Claes 2 Bed Listening to Dead Maus in My Head, 2018, Reclaimed mahogany from Fall River, multi density fiberboard, aluminum, stainless steel, Art in America mailer, 17 x 13.75 x 8.75 in.

Harry Gould Harvey IV, There Are Flames Pouring Out of the Holes of the Dovecote, 2018, Reclaimed mahogany from Fall River, multi density fiberboard, foraged clay from Swan’s Island, enamel, 19 x 12.25 x 7.5 in.

Harry Gould Harvey IV & Samantha Durand, EARTH CRISIS, 2018, exhibition view, Alyssa Davis Gallery, New York

Harry Gould Harvey IV, But I Am Afraid That, 2018, Reclaimed mahogany from Fall River, charcoal and colored pencil on paper, 9.5 x 6.5 x 2 in.

Harry Gould Harvey IV, As the Serpent Deceived Eve By His Cunning, 2018, Reclaimed mahogany from Fall River, charcoal and colored pencil on paper, 9.5 x 6.5 x 1.75 in.

Harry Gould Harvey IV, Your Mind Will Be Led Astray, 2018, Black walnut, charcoal and colored pencil on paper, 9.5 x 6.5 x 2 in.

Harry Gould Harvey IV, From Simplicity, 2018, Reclaimed mahogany from Fall River, charcoal and colored pencil on paper, 9.5 x 6.5 x 2.25 in.

Harry Gould Harvey IV, And Purity of Devotion, 2018, Reclaimed mahogany and black walnut from Fall River, charcoal and colored pencil on paper, 10.5 x 6.5 x 1.75 in.

Harry Gould Harvey IV & Samantha Durand, EARTH CRISIS, 2018, exhibition view, Alyssa Davis Gallery, New York

Samantha Durand, Untitled, 2015, Collected bones from Aquidneck Island, hot glue, steel, 9.5 x 7 x 3.5 in.

Harry Gould Harvey IV, Juggalo / Jugalone Sculpture Garden, 2018, Rotting juglans nigra / black walnuts, chakta viga burl, foraged clay from Swan’s Island, Dimensions variable

Harry Gould Harvey IV & Samantha Durand, EARTH CRISIS, 2018, exhibition view, Alyssa Davis Gallery, New York

Harry Gould Harvey IV, Dessert Disaster, 2018, Multi density fiberboard, foraged clay from Swan’s Island, toothpicks, charcoal, 10.5 x 9.5 x 1.5 in.

Harry Gould Harvey IV, 150 Self Portraits from Swan’s Island, Maine, 2018, Foraged clay from Swan’s Island, Dimensions variable

Harry Gould Harvey IV, Chalk Line is Ancient Laser, 2018, Blue marking chalk, Dimensions variable

Harry Gould Harvey IV & Samantha Durand, EARTH CRISIS, 2018, exhibition view, Alyssa Davis Gallery, New York

Samantha Durand, Untitled, 2011, Single-channel video, 05m:42s

Samantha Durand, Untitled, 2011, Single-channel video, 07m:40s

Harry Gould Harvey IV & Samantha Durand, EARTH CRISIS, 2018, exhibition view, Alyssa Davis Gallery, New York

Harry Gould Harvey IV, Please! Radical Empathy for a Lost Landscape, 2018, Ancient sinker cypress, stainless steel hardware, Xerox on paper, colored pencil, airplane cable, Dimensions variable

Harry Gould Harvey IV & Samantha Durand, EARTH CRISIS, 2018, exhibition view, Alyssa Davis Gallery, New York

Harry Gould Harvey IV, Bibles Full of Libel, 2018, Reclaimed mahogany from Fall River, Xerox on plexiglass, charcoal and colored pencil on newsprint, multi density fiberboard, 15 x 13.25 x 2 in.

Harry Gould Harvey IV & Samantha Durand, EARTH CRISIS, 2018, exhibition view, Alyssa Davis Gallery, New York

Samantha Durand, Untitled, 2015, Collected bones from Aquidneck Island, hot glue, steel, 8 x 5.5 x 2.5 in.

Harry Gould Harvey IV, Ms. Alyssa Davis Foundation Sculpture Garden, 2018, Rotting juglans nigra / black walnut, foraged black walnut, foraged clay from Swan’s Island, Dimensions variable

Harry Gould Harvey IV, Paradise Valley (Lead Poisoning is Cumulative!), 2018, Foraged black walnut, stainless steel hardware, Xerox on paper, colored pencil, airplane cable, Dimensions variable

Harry Gould Harvey IV, Paranoid Pareidolia, 2018, Pencil, Dimensions variable

Harry Gould Harvey IV & Samantha Durand, EARTH CRISIS, 2018, exhibition view, Alyssa Davis Gallery, New York

Harry Gould Harvey IV, I Want You to Burn So Bright You Burn Spots Into the Eyes of Anyone Who Sees You, 2018, Reclaimed mahogany from Fall River, charcoal and colored pencil on paper, 9.5 x 6.5 x 2 in.