BEAUTY: Art--Ruprecht Von Kaufman

Regular readers know that I truly love painters who work with very oblique, enigmatic narratives. And painter Ruprecht Von Kaufman really knows how to present a scene that requires interpretation, showing us frozen scenes of arcane rites, covert actions, or ambiguous situations we are not meant to see. His imagery is clouded in mystery and verge on the surreal... more qualities I love in a piece of art.

http://www.rvonkaufmann.com/

Happy Birthday, Edward Gorey!

Today marks the 88th birthday of artist, illustrator and author Edward Gorey (February 22, 1925 – April 15, 2000). This largely self-taught artist left behind a delightful, remarkable, and wholly unique body of work upon his death. Most of his works are set in the Victorian and Edwardian era, with a very dark sense of humor and a twist of morbidity. His fascinating and skillful pen-and-ink works inspired generations and spawned the opening credits of the PBS series "Mystery!" as well as the absolutely gorgeous music video for Nine Inch Nails' song "The Perfect Drug" directed by Mark Romanek in 1997 (previously here).

I saw a wonderful exhibit of Gorey's work at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco in 1993. The museum had a limited supply of signed books and museum catalogs by Gorey, which I snapped up!

And here is the man himself, in one of his many beloved fur coats (he stopped wearing fur altogether, rightly calling it "cruelty to animals"), and with a few of his many, many cats.

And for fun, here is the PBS "Mystery!" opening credits...

Happy Birthday, Mr. Gorey!

His home on Cape Cod is now a museum whose profits go toward protecting animals, particularly dogs, cats, bats, and insects.
http://www.edwardgoreyhouse.org/

BEAUTY: Photography--Mikko Lagerstedt

Finnish photographer Mikko Lagerstedt beautifully captures what I imagine to be the mood and tone of his home country where winters are long and days are short. Cold, darkness, stars, moonlight, and mysterious figures. It feels like Romanticism from 1790...

http://www.mikkolagerstedt.com/index.html

BEAUTY: Art--Meghan Howland

Meghan Howland's paintings seem as if we are catching people in the middle of enigmatic events or strange situations that cannot be explained. I like how they provoke one to ponder a possible narrative.

Equally mesmerizing is her imagery of people being overwhelmed by flying birds. Of course, culturally, one might flash upon Hitchcock's iconic "The Birds" but instead of being terrorized by the birds, Howland's figures seem to be the calm center of a maelstrom of feathers, as though they have drawn such a thing to themselves...

The pieces shown on her website are not named, although the photos have a descriptor that could be a name.

http://www.meghanhowland.com/