| Description: A pivotal body of work, these drawings are illustrations for "Les Chants de Maldoror", by Le Comte de Lautreamont (Isidore Ducasse). This text was hailed as a masterpiece by the Paris Surrealists, because of the nature of it's content, and the time at which it was authored. Historically, the text was written at a time when Paris was under siege by the Prussian armies in the late 1860's. Despite this, the author developed images and psychologically disturbing situations still considered taboo. The drawings illustrate the sometimes macabre nature of the text. The simple use of black and white, the starkness of the images, and the grim yet sometimes beautiful nature of the imagery serve as a series of illustrations to the often overlooked text. Some of the drawings, done in the traditional look of etchings, are drawn from Dali illustrations of the same text. The majority, however, are done with objective intentions - something which at the time was a new aspect in my drawings. |
