9.10.2010

The Haunted Woods Where Hoofed Feet Swagger

Here are some scans of some smaller pieces I did last week plus a scan of the flier image since I only posted a photo before. I also have some scans of the three "terrible vengeance" paintings I posted in their frames that I'll probably post later.

This guy is the bolotnik, a swamp spirit that, like every water spirit in virtually all folklore, will drown you.
This is just a small painting. Forests are full of scary stuff!
This is a witch's coffin. I was really interested in that fascination with "unclean" death that was explored a little with the corpses popping out of the ground in "A Terrible Vengeance", and is essentially the source of European Vampire Lore. Russian folklore is full of horrible reanimated corpses, people who died prematurely or without passing on their arcane knowledge. Witches and sorcerers could pass their knowledge on to unsuspecting bystanders at their death bed with just a touch or word and escape the fate of the walking dead. If they died "ensorceled" their coffin would be rejected by the good earth and they would become the walking dead, sometimes reanimated by demons who would wear their flayed skin. These revenants were also known to come back and devour their remaining family. They were sometimes preventatively staked with an aspen stake through the heart.
This is a moth, which was the form that nightmares and the souls of sleeping people would take. I really like moths that have a natural false eye pattern.
And this is the piece for my flier based on St. John's Eve, already posted but here's a nice clean scan.

Show is hung, opening tonight!

1 comment:

roxy said...

everything looks so coooool i'm gonna die of excitement !!!!!!!!!!!!!!