Sean Noyce

Sean Noyce and Johnny Gimenez unveiled their premiere collaborative project, The Resurrection of Stars, at the TRYST International Art Fair, organized by the Torrance Art Museum, on August 23-25, 2024. Their immersive installation featured a fusion of video projections, live performance, sound, sculpture, and painting. Gimenez, former frontman of the post-punk band Tyburn Saints, performed at various times throughout the fair, bringing a ritualistic energy to the event that celebrates the cyclical passage of time through patterns of light and darkness.

Reverence for the sun, sky, and solar cycles has been a universal theme throughout the ancient world. Mythologies featuring solar deities abound, from Ra in Egypt, to Lugh in Ireland, Sol Invictus in Rome, Huitzilopochtli in Mexico, Sehul in Turkey, and Surya in India. These stories often depict a divine chariot carrying a golden disk across the heavens, symbolizing a deity’s watchful presence over terrestrial events.

For The Resurrection of Stars, Noyce assumed the role of the charioteer, donning a three-faced mask representing an all-seeing, omniscient entity. His performance utilized a high-powered lantern that projected beams cascading across the room, creating kaleidoscopic patterns on the gallery walls. Meanwhile, Gimenez enhanced the installation with his dynamic ambient guitar performances and vocals, characterized by droning, intense sounds and vocal incantations. These were set against the hypnotic soundscapes of handmade four-track tape loops he crafted by randomly deconstructing and rebuilding vintage cassettes found in his travels, underscoring the year’s climactic moments.

The performance consisted of three parts: “Prologue,” “Light,” and “Dark,” punctuated by the symbolic exchange of white, gold, and silver masks that adorned the gallery walls. “Prologue” began with a mellow prelude and a brief meditation in front of the “golden chariot;” “Light” unfolds with a series of gentle movements that cast shards of golden light around the room; As Gimenez’s musical score intensifies in “Dark,” Noyce’s movements follow suit, with an array of gestures and contortions that circle the “golden chariot,” culminating in a climactic crash at the end.