RRR
IMAGINARY FILM STILLS
These paintings of imaginary film stills are based on a screenplay for a Science Fiction film, titled Regression, that an uncle of mine developed in the 1950s. The film was never made, nor, to my knowledge, has any of the script survived, but from memory I've tried to recreate what actual scenes may have looked like had the film been made.
From what I remember of my uncle's stories, the script was about a crew of astronauts who travel to a tropical exoplanet that has an earth-like atmosphere. They begin exploring the surface in pairs but almost immediately get separated and lose contact with each other and with the ship. Isolated, they begin to reverse in age. It takes some time for them to notice, but they're growing younger at alarming rates. They wade in the shallows of coves, discovering that something in the water slows the regression process. Their ship sometimes reappears in the sky, but oddly in differing forms, as if something's trying to replicate it but can't get it right. Later it's revealed that the planet itself is a sentient life form that is purposefully regressing them. It senses dishonesty and aggression in them (elements fleshed out in earlier subplots) and can only communicate with minds that are free of guile. By returning them to their more innocent boyhoods, it hopes to establish contact.
Wes Hempel
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EXHIBITION OPENING SEPTEMBER 6, 2025
Billis Williams Gallery,
2716 S. La Cienega Blvd.,
Los Angeles, CA 90034;
T: 310-838-3685;
www.billiswilliams.com
