dez'mon omega fair

For two months, unbeknownst to the tourists and locals walking down Main Street, Dez’Mon Omega Fair, a recent arrival to Walla Walla, painted late into the night behind the locked doors of the closed Liberty Theater. Evening after evening, as the town around him slowly quieted and the hot summer sun slipped over the horizon, he turned the 105-year-old building into a sanctuary of color. On Aug. 28, a warm Sunday night, private guests dressed all in black filed almost solemnly into the lobby, walked into the historic auditorium, and entered into the world that Fair had built.There was a performance: interpretive dance, body painting, music, poetry.And by the next day, Fair got to work removing the entire months-long project from the walls of the Liberty. Like a flower bud that hangs for a season and blooms for a single day, it was here, and then it was gone. FULL ARTICLE 

The 2019 Film and Video Poetry Symposium was our first program with an artist in residence.  Poet and performance artist Dez’Mon Omega Fair not only trailblazed a structure for future residencies, but also presented groundbreaking content.

Fair’s videopoetry series “After Grace” was presented at The Los Angeles Center for Digital Art in situ with his piece “At The Cross”, an assemblage of ink on washi paper, poetic text, and found objects spanning a 12 by 12 foot wall for our gallery program “Analog Sun, Digital Moon”. 

Visual artist and filmmaker Avital Oehler interviewed Dez’Mon about the creative process for both his poetry and work as a painter. The following  exchange between the artists began on May 17, 2019 and ended June 29, 2019. This article was edited then finalized on June 19, 2020. FULL INTERVIEW

In one of Wa Na Wari’s upstairs galleries, visitors are greeted by poet and artist Dez’Mon Omega Fair’s immersive video installation. The entire room is covered in paint-splattered canvas. Dozens of watercolor paintings on rice paper are scattered across the floor and haphazardly taped to the walls with printouts of Fair’s poems squished in between them. It’s a cozy yet frenetic space that feels like stepping directly into the artist’s mind. “There’s a lot going on [in this space], but then little messages come out, and that’s indicative of how people think,” they said in a recent interview. “We’re all trying to piece together what’s happening in our brain and trying to bring words to it. Language fails us all the time” In the middle of the space, a covered couch is available for viewers to sit on and watch his short film, “Prayer III.” FULL ARTICLE

While walking through Reid, it’s hard to miss the Stevens Gallery, covered floor to ceiling in a collage of vibrant colors, miscellaneous inky scribbles and peculiar poems. On display until Oct. 4, this magnificent amalgamation is interdisciplinary artist Dez’ Mon Omega Fair’s “Word II: Ars Poetica.”

At first blush, it may appear to be the work of multiple artists, but Omega Fair crafted this wide array of work over the course of a decade. The project serves as a testament to the process of letting go of the strict artistic format he conformed to as a fashion assistant and exploring what it means to create free from judgment and rigidity. 

“I was fighting against what the fashion world was trying to tell me that I should appreciate in the human body,” he said. “It came to a boiling point when I started painting and realized there were just certain things I don’t believe anymore and I need to move on, and this is me blowing up those fashion drawings with all this explosive color.” FULL ARTICLE