Monstror

Eric Lacombe, better known in the art world as Monstror, is an astounding artist from Lyons, France that was born in 1968. I first encountered Eric's portfolio while browsing deviantArt.


This is an artist of the highest caliber, possessing those indefinable and elusive qualities of emotional impact that few artists possess. You can never say exactly what it is, but you know it when you see it. There is a subtlety contained within his pieces that can only be understood when one studies, very closely, the intricate details and nuances that make up the whole, i.e. in the large-size format.


Whether it's the textures, psychological content expressed, or the dark, beautiful intensity, this man's work is something to be admired and appreciated for what it really is: a rare glimpse inside the subconscious--something that transcends words and goes to the core.


As a child, Monstror was obsessed with dead things and the processes of decay itself, particularly dead birds that frequented his garden; as well as the look and texture of rusted objects. During these formative years he did a lot of drawing, but eventually stopped altogether for some years. Once he had grown older he found a job as a graphic designer and this brought back to him a desire to begin drawing again, predominately using the Drawing aspects of Photoshop programs.


From the very beginning, Monstror had a need and desire to express a feeling or mood, not to just "create something artistic". To this day, this is still the criteria he uses: expressing a mood, outward, into the world; not intentionally producing pieces of art. I've been personally in correspondence with Eric about his work and I'll include a quote here that he sent me:

"I know my works are full of artistic mistakes and I have no real technique to do so, but that is the way I want it to be."

And I include this quote for a specific reason. First and foremost, I have yet to find anything in his pieces that would be anywhere near the category of a "mistake". However, I think I know what he means here, and that is his work emerges up from deep within. The soul of every person has flaws and mistakes and those unique qualities are precisely what makes humans what we are--makes us, us; from the most damaged to the most exalted.


Mr. Lacombe uses a Pen Tablet in Photoshop, along with several Brushes that he creates for himself when searching for just the right texture to fulfill his visions. He is not, nor ever has been, into the "Gothic thing", although many people seem to automatically assume this when looking at some of his pieces.


His reasons for creating what he does have only to do with expressing central themes that interest and fascinate him: "Solitude, loneliness, sad feelings, melancholy, tears, poetry, fear, pain... etc." His incredible work can be found on the following sites:
deviantArt
Monstror's Blog
Facebook
MySpace













In closing, I want to give a personal thanks to Eric Lacombe, for providing me with details for this Feature; of his influences, his childhood, and the techniques he uses to create things we are fortunate enough to witness.

Ceiling of Hell

Greetings, fellow Dark Art lovers.

As some of you may have noticed I have been taking a break from the Blog world for the last three months. The reasons for this are varied and...none of your fuckin' business! LOL, just kidding.

Anyway, I am back for the time being, although my time is still not as available as it once was. However, I want to send out a thanks to those who have sent inquiring, kind notes as to where I disappeared to, or if I were still alive.

So yes, fortunately for a few, perhaps unfortunately for even more, I am still kicking and taking no prisoners. I will get around to answering all emails, comments, notes, and Instant Messages soon enough, but until then my next feature here is going to be a slight departure from the norm on this Blog. In fact, it may become a new type feature, as opposed to the "visual" arts. I still haven't decided yet.

But, at any rate, I'm going to include one of my recent poems here. A few of you are aware I am a writer of demented fiction and fewer still that I occasionally spew out a poem for no other reason than to excise whatever may be eating into my brain from a life I rarely understand. This piece was inspired partially by a painting (included below) and...well, figure it out for yourself.

You may like it, you may hate it, but any comments as to whether this type of thing (Dark poetry by other artists) should be a somewhat regular Feature on this Blog is most appreciated. So, without further delay, I leave you with this:

Ceiling of Hell

I walk these streets
Among night-crawlers,
Breathing veils of darkness;
Trying to forget,
To Hide,
Deny
The rising inner Heat,
Devoid of Light
That blur stares from inquisitive strangers
Sensing primal inclinations.

Their suspicions cling
As though beasts in agony,
Perched,
Up there, along the Edge
In gnarled green canopies
Above earth, within nightmares, around memories
Of war: insatiable Whore of Man
Feasting on appetites
Honed true by Cain & Abel
Among swelling viscera
--knotted, bruised, festering—
Uncoiling
From my mind
Across battlefields
…and war crimes
…and extermination squads
…and ethnic cleansing,
Ready to strike, viper-quick
With agenda-laden fangs
Injecting poison into warriors
Yet to be born
In wombs of keloid tissue
Of traditions and tribal law
Breeding disease, hatred
Across ancient bloodlines,
Forgotten wrongs.

They call me Mercenary;
Trained for Stealthy Death
Hardened by acts of depravity,
Against the depraved.
Chiseled flint focus
Sharpened by bone and stinking flesh
Reeking burnt-fish-onion odors
Of fear and brutality
That ooze
From pores of the inhumane.

I melt across foreign lands
Eating shadows
Camouflaged in moonless nights
Silent as graveyard wind
Crawling in mud, blood, shit and death:
Waiting
Watching
Witnessing
Slaughtered children, baptized
By gore, and fire, and torn flesh
Forever marked
By retribution, hatred, insanity.

They sit alone, these children,
As one and the same
Across every land-every battle-every abomination
Silent
Frozen
Discolored
In filthy alleys and foxholes—
Forever staring
Above
Searching for answers
Yet,
Only finding the empty
Face of God
Refracted by polluted oceans
Welling up in violated eyes
Of insect hosts,
Broken hearts.
Their souls rise among malevolent tornadoes,
Crying black clouds of ink, violence, cordite.

The days now drip into weeks,
Skip across the surface of months,
Stagger blindly on the broken back of years
Coalesced mind-scars of numb, quiet horror
That no one can ever know, understand, accept
Because of what I saw, what I did
To those that stole
The innocent from our future,
Back there--in another time, another life.

I now hunger, starve
For the closeness and kind touch of a true lover
I’ll never have;
Her arms wound tightly around me,
Through me.
The two of us creating a new Being
A living fossil, sharing one breath
Entwined within the canvas of Beksiński’s ‘Embrace’.
One who will never let go
nor
Fear my pain
nor
Judge my past
nor
Condemn my life
Because of monsters I have slain
That rot in shallow graves across the earth,
Caressing the ceiling of Hell.


Ceiling of Hell by Majase Cyc is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.


Zdzisław Beksiński: 'Embrace'

Kris Kuski

Kris was born in Springfield, Missouri in 1973 and spent a difficult childhood in an isolated world of rural seclusion, introversion, and imagination.

His art exemplifies a distaste for the often typical American life, and a pop culture driven by greed and materialism.

Kuski's paintings and highly intricate sculptures have acquired a cult following and been featured in over 100 exhibitions as well as winning numerous awards and prizes.

Several of his pieces have been in international art magazines and book covers, theatrical posters and, most recently, on the just-released Sepultura album A-Lex (inspired by the book A Clockwork Orange).

Kuski's amazing creations can be found all over the web, including:
Kuski
deviantART
Beinart
MySpace

Mia Mäkilä

Mia, born 1979, is an Art Historian, painter, photographer, and mixed media/digital collage artist from Norrköping, in eastern Sweden.

She describes her work as horror pop surrealism or dark lowbrow. When asked to describe herself, she is fond of responding:

"Picture Pippi Longstocking and Swedish movie director Ingmar Bergman having a love child. That's me."

She is a self taught artist in a constant state of learning, and trying new things. Her work is heavily inspired by film directors such as David Lynch, Ingmar Bergman, Alfred Hitchcock, Roy Andersson, Terry Gilliam and Tim Burton; as well as artists like Hieronymus Bosch, Pieter Bruegel, Francisco Goya, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Mark Ryden, Marion Peck, and the masters of Disney Studio's in the 1930's-40's. She also collaborates with Gus Fink (the Creeplings Project).

Specific psychological aspects of her personality heavily influence her art: a passionate loner that dislikes traveling, is decidedly neurotic, scared of numerous things, and extremely afraid to die--not to mention living in a haunted house.

Beyond this, Mäkilä defines her genre as a kind of new Victorianism that is darkly erotic, grotesque, yet beautiful, and a fan of black humor. Her view of artists are as magicians, not moneymakers, and she abhors dishonest, deceitful people.

The goals she strives for through her work is to exorcise the personal demons of grief, sadness, pain, anger, rage, hurt, confusion, shame, and desire. Most of her work consists of acrylics, vintage photographs, paper cut outs, and charcoal, along with a few secret techniques.

Mia's website can be found here, and her blog is here.