The final of the 3 cover art pieces for the @arrowvideo release of Tarsem Singh’s The Cell. This scene, finding the killer in the height of his grandiose delusion, an emperor of pain, is the most visually arresting in a film that heavily references surrealist art. The mechanism for how his vast cloak is pulled along the throne room walls by his descent is very clever and unforgettably operatic.
I combined this exquisitely disturbing moment with the constant theme of surveillance in the film. He watches his victims, the investigators watch him in reality and in his dreams, and his dreams are ultimately the escape he has created since childhood from the abusive surveillance of his violent father, policing his queerness to the point where his only refuge is turning that violence inward to control it and mutate it into dark power.
The eye in the art is the bleached eye of his victim, that he wishes to make into a human doll. There was a version with the inside of the eye filling with water, as was his bizarrely inventive M.O., but simpler was better to convey this notion of constant watching and intrusion. I do wish this film featured a more compelling cast of investigators, and there are some key plot holes in the real world search part of the plot, but Vincent D’Onofrio’s performance and the glorious excess of the visuals still make it a must see
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#bluraycover #movieposterart #thecell
The second of 3 pieces of art for the @arrowvideo release of Tarsem Singh’s The Cell, this one for the deluxe slip cover, is aiming to be as symbolist as it is pictorial. Tension between the heroine and antagonist, the suspension wires of the dream mechanism as an analogy for the fetish chains the k*ller uses, and vice versa. Something darkly elegant about these ideas in parallel
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Soz for creeping you out when you have that hangover (projecting!), but here’s one of the three BluRay cover art pieces I did for the recent @arrowvideo special release of Tarsem Singh’s sumptuously disturbing film The Cell. A visually epic meditation on serial k*llers, f*cked up childhoods and surrealism, spliced with a neo noir crime story that isn’t nearly as good as the gorgeously operatic nightmare sequences that easily justify this movie’s place in anyone’s collection. The tagline was “enter the mind of a serial k*ller”, I used to call it “enter the mind of a fashion designer”, but revisiting it, its best moments really are a dark gift to the senses
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Carrie is asked what she thinks of Prom, and she replies with the innocent wonderment that will be completely destroyed in her very near future “It’s like being on Mars.”
While Miss Piggy’s rageful assertion of her wants, needs and boundaries had a very formative effect on me, discovering Carrie White also gave some focus to the intensity of rage I felt at growing up in a world that hated people like me, and among people who either did little to shield me from that hatred, or actively participated in it. The character makes perfect sense to women, oddballs and queer people who experienced adolescence as a brutal trial to survive.
The world is beautiful and cruel, and right now the worst of it is on full display. There is much to be enraged about, much to try, in small but collective ways, to help mitigate or heal.
I did this art for the early version of Lee Gambin’s book about the Brian De Palma masterpiece Carrie. The Carrie tribute art section was edited from the vision for the book, but the book is a MUST for all fans of this film and film in general.
Lee loved this illustration. Passionate about animal rights, he loved that it flipped the script on the torturous pig’s bl**d in the film. When we spoke of it we’d say “Now is that human bl**d or”. Sick humour for a sick world. I’ll never stop missing his genius.
Read him!
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#art #artist #illustration #painting #digitalart #digitalpainting #handpainted #noai #misspiggy #carrie #briandepalma #sissyspacek #stephenking #horror #70shorror #promnight #righteousindignation #🔥
Here’s something that made a splash but in all the haste of other work, I forgot to share it here! Lucky it’s never too late on the permanent internet! The Great Muppet Mural was a super fun massive group artist project initiated by premiere Muppet fan site @toughpigs and managed by @toughpigsjoe and the very clever @jvcarroll4
It involved a league of great illustrators each assigned one or more Muppet character that were added to a truly massive mural, produced in both digital and real space as a deluxe print. Naturally I was assigned La Pig!…
The entire project was a real HIT (hyyaaahh)!!
You can see more of it, and read about all the artists and their work, as well as watch the documentary ToughPigs made about its creation, at ToughPigs.com (search Great Muppet Mural)
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#art #artist #illustrator #illustration #fanart #muppetfan #muppetfanart #themuppets #thegreatmuppetmural #toughpigs #misspiggy #glitz #glamour #swinger
As if we never said goodbye…
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I haven’t posted much in the last year or so. Since losing my, our, friend Lee Gambin I’ve focused intently and privately on my own projects, in every spare moment I’ve found. His absolute fire to express and produce has infused us all with more motivation than ever, and the notion of posting about that has felt trivial. Ironic given that posting loudly was a major part of Lee’s voice in the world.
I thought some Miss Piggy art was an appropriate way back to sharing images here. Sunset Boulevard sums up so much of what Lee loved, a musical about a movie vamp turned vampiric in her quest to hold onto the magic. And Muppets, my work on one of their movies, sparked the very first conversation Lee and I ever had, in the beer garden of a (now long gone) nice healthy lesbian bar. Instant friendship cemented by La Pig!
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So this one’s for you, Lee!!
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#art #artist #ilustrator #illustration #muppets #themuppets #misspiggy #misspiggyart #muppetfan #muppetfanart #sunsetboulevard #musical #musicals #broadway #classicmovies #billywilder #hollywood #femmefatale #normadesmond #queericon #star #stardom #asifweneversaidgoodbye
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Seems appropriate to post my original art for the cover of the @arrowvideo release of Exorcist II - The Heretic, right at this moment when the world REALLY needs a second exorcism
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#art #artist #illustration #illustrator #painting #digitalpainting #digitalart #notAI #handmade #digitallymediated #bluray #coverart #movie #poster #movieposter #horror #horrormovies #giallo #sequel #theexorcist #exorcist2 #collectors #physicalmedia #homecinema #starring #lindablair #richardburton #jamesearljones #somelocusts
Swipe for my first development sketches for this piece
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I haven’t posted anything to my feed here since my friend LEE GAMBIN left us so suddenly, earlier this year. Shocking us all into the strangest state of LEElessness. If you knew him you’ll understand immediately what that means. The world’s gravity still feels wrong
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Posting my art has felt like a distant indulgence, even though I know Lee would’ve reprimanded me for that remark, saying “Allllright Darlst, calm down…”
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I’ll probably always feel like the world ain’t right without him. But today I’m posting because THIS was just released!
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The second time I’ve been commissioned to make art for the cover of a BluRay release. This time for the @arrowvideo release of John Boorman’s epic Giallo style sequel Exorcist II - The Heretic
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Perfect for Halloween, and perfect because it’s the first and, very sadly, last time my work will appear on a release with audio commentary from the great LEE GAMBIN. I miss his mind and his wicked, wild and wonderful sense of both humour and history every single day. I’ll never get used to his absence, his silence. He was the LEAST silent person I’ve ever known!
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That’s why it’s such a treasure to have SO many of his audio commentaries on SO many releases, and his voice SO vivid in his many books too. I’m immensely grateful to be on this release with Lee. He is the reason I’ve begun to live this dream of making posters and covers for movies! I just wish he’d seen this one himself.
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#art #artist #illustration #illustrator #posterart #poster #movies #movieposter #bluray #bluraycover #bluraycoverart #physicalmedia #classiccinema #classicmovies #johnboorman #leegambin #theexorcist #theexorcist2 #theheretic #horror #thriller #halloween #friendship #chosenfamily #alrightdarlst
Last Friday was one of the most difficult yet most love filled days I’ve ever experienced. The scope of Lee’s effect on people is staggering. Standing room at his celebration of life, around two hundred people at his wake and many more watching online around the world. His fusion of devotion with genius, hard work, and a solid pinch of the good madness. Family of both kinds. Friendships forged by art and the art of great friendship.
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It is an honour for us all to know that we will be eternally possessed by your ingenious spirit. You always had enough to share.
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But even still, we will miss you forever.
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#leegambin #cinemaniacs #fangoriamagazine #bearmanor #cultcinema #journalist #filmhistorian #culturalicon #legend #friend
“Worship him!”
“Live forever!”
“Normal”
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The way he’d blend loud absurdity and heart rending sincerity into every phrase. I’m gonna miss that so extremely fucking much.
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I should be better at this by now. It’s happened to me enough. I let him know how important he was to me every time we were together. Just how brilliant he was. What a pleasure it was to be outpaced, educated and confused by him. Or how amazing it felt on the less common occasions when I could do the same for him. You truly never know the volume of love you feel for someone more than when they’re gone.
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#leegambin #cinemaniacs #cinemaniacsoz #filmcritic #author #playwright #activist #communityleader #filmhistorian #funnyfucker #legend #icon #friend
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The shock is so massive. But seeing tributes from some of Lee’s beloved family of friends has helped unlock my tears, so I hope I can do something to help us all grieve. I can’t even begin to quantify the loss of someone who shared his spirit, his knowledge and his friendship so generously. There is no one in this country or on this planet with more charisma than Lee Gambin. Losing him feels like a kind of silence I can’t bear. It feels like a vast library has burned down.
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I’m grateful beyond words that he shared so much with us. That he wrote so many books and recorded so many audio commentaries. He was the biggest sun for an entire galaxy of great minds in the cinemaniacs community, and the much much larger world of film and TV history and criticism. He was known and loved by some of the most legendary performers, writers, directors and producers, makeup artists and designers from the pantheon of media he devoted his life to.
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Lee and I met 14 years ago because he was told I worked on a Muppet movie, so we bonded instantly. “I heard you worked with the Muppets! Fabulous!” Our shared approach to life is pretty muppety… madcap, warm, collective. Lines from Muppet songs would make us both mist up. That simple, true wisdom of hope. Follow your dreams, find your chosen family and be true to yourself no matter how the world tries to dim your light. I’d recite a lyric, he’d start singing at the top of his voice, then after he’d expanded the moment the way only Lee could, he’d pause and say, “Stop! It’s too much!” And really really mean it.
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#leegambin #cinemaniacs #cinemaniacsoz #fangoriamagazine #thetote #acmi #theastorcinema #cinema #film #academia #icon #king #friend
