Month: September 2015

Edward Gorey

Illustrations by Edward Gorey

Edward St. John Gorey was an American writer and artist noted for his illustrated books. His characteristic pen-and-ink drawings often depict vaguely unsettling narrative scenes in Victorian and Edwardian settings.

Gorey’s illustrated (and sometimes wordless) books, with their vaguely ominous air and ostensibly Victorian and Edwardian settings, have long had a cult following. Gorey became particularly well-known through his animated introduction to the PBS series Mystery! in 1980, as well as his designs for the 1977 Broadway production of Dracula, for which he won a Tony Award for Best Costume Design. He also was nominated for Best Scenic Design. In the introduction of each episode of Mystery!, Vincent Price would welcome viewers to “Gorey Mansion”.

In response to being called gothic, he stated, “If you’re doing nonsense it has to be rather awful, because there’d be no point. I’m trying to think if there’s sunny nonsense. Sunny, funny nonsense for children – oh, how boring, boring, boring. As Schubert said, there is no happy music. And that’s true, there really isn’t. And there’s probably no happy nonsense, either.”

Notes: Among the February 2018 archive of this site, there is a Calendar article for February 22nd that contains a biography of short biography of Edward Gorey’s life.

For those Edward Gorey fans, which I admit to having been one since the time I could read, I highly recommend reading Acocella’s wonderful article about Gorey’s life and wit.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/12/10/edward-goreys-enigmatic-world

Christian Schloe

Digital Artwork by Christian Schloe

These surreal scenes by Christian Schloe feature bizarre moments that draw viewers out of a concrete reality and into a dreamy, fictional world. In his work, the digital artist creates expressive visual stories filled with soft color palettes, elegant birds and butterflies, soft flower petals, and otherworldly, majestic landscapes. The illusion of a scratched canvas and worn, aged edges allude to a different time and place where a howling wolf is half human, half animal; a couple dances among the clouds; and a young girl collects drops of moonlight in a bowl.

Each beautifully designed composition is a whimsical fantasy concocted by the talented artist. Schloe playfully blends realistic elements with perplexing, conceptual ideas. In doing so, he creates the illusion of serenity within a strange and confusing composition. Though he may have significant meaning behind his work, the artist leaves no clues to an explanation. Viewers are left to venture out on our own journey, interpreting the intriguing illustrations with endless possibilities to the narratives that we might dream up.

Julie Wolfe

JUlie Wolfe, “Lawless”, 2014

Born in 1963, Julie Wolfe is a visual and conceptual artist living and working in Washington, DC. She received a BFA in Painting and Art History from The University of Texas, Austin, TX. Her work is exhibited and collected internationally and has been featured in ARTnews, BBC America and Hyperallergic.

In 2017, Wolfe exhibited at HEMPHILL Fine Arts in Washington, DC and at the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center. She recently completed a residency at AGA LAB in Amsterdam, the Netherlands where she fabricated the Landview Effect portfolio.

Wolfe’s work is conceived by harvesting data, discarded objects and images that create a new narrative in the context of ecological environment and social / cultural evolution. She offers abstract equations, mapping patterns and geometric networks as a means to describe the workings of a given system. By engaging in this symbolic dialect of time, place, interconnectedness and memory, Wolfe invites the viewer to trace their own associations and interpretations.

Anthony Burgess: “Oh It Was Gorgeousness and Gorgeosity Made Flesh”

Photographer Unknown,  (Leaning Against a White Wall)

“Oh it was gorgeousness and gorgeosity made flesh. The trombones crunched redgold under my bed, and behind my gulliver the trumpets three-wise silverflamed, and there by the door the timps rolling through my guts and out again crunched like candy thunder. Oh, it was wonder of wonders. And then, a bird of like rarest spun heavenmetal, or like silvery wine flowing in a spaceship, gravity all nonsense now, came the violin solo above all the other strings, and those strings were like a cage of silk round my bed. Then flute and oboe bored, like worms of like platinum, into the thick thick toffee gold and silver. I was in such bliss, my brothers.”

― Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange

Peter Murphy, “Cuts You Up”

Peter Murphy, “Cuts You Up”

Peter John Joseph Murphy is an English singer and musician. He was the vocalist of the rock group Bauhaus and later went on to release a number of solo albums, such as “Deep” and” Love Hysteria”. Thin with prominent cheekbones, a baritone voice, and a penchant for gloomy poetics, he is often called the “Godfather of Goth”.

Daniel Ash convinced Murphy to join Bauhaus, one of the establishing acts of the goth movement. Their use of spacey recording effects and theatrical aesthetics was evocative of glam rock; they became an influential group in the early days of gothic rock. In 1983, Bauhaus appeared during the opening sequences of the horror film The Hunger, performing one of their most popular songs, “Bela Lugosi’s Dead”. The camera focused almost exclusively on Murphy during most of the scene, panning only briefly to the stars David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve.

Most people I know dismissed Peter Murphy; but I always thought he was unique in voice and style. Love this song. On my list for drives to NYC.

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

David Urban

Five Oil Paintigs by David Urban, Corkin Gallery, Toronto

Born in Toronto in 1966,  David Urban studied poetry and painting at York University, earning a BFA in 1989. Urban received a Master’s degree in English Literature and Creative writing from the University of Windsor in 1991 (where he studied with Alistair MacLeod) and a second Master’s degree in Painting from the University of Guelph in 1993.

His work is represented in many private and public collections including the National Gallery of Canada. In 2002, Urban curated Painters 15, an exhibition of established Canadian painters which was presented at the Shanghai Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art.

Sentience

Artist Unknown, (Sentience), Computer Graphics, Animation Glitch Gifs

“Poor Old Ones! Scientists to the last — what had they done that we would not have done in their place? God, what intelligence and persistence! What a facing of the incredible, just as those carven kinsmen and forebears had faced things only a little less incredible! Radiates, vegetables, monstrosities, star spawn — whatever they had been, they were men!”
― H.P. Lovecraft, At the Mountains of Madness