mothbites

LEONARA CARRINGTON AND FEMINIST SURREALISM

Leonora Carrington drew inspiration from magical realism and alchemy. She strived to present female sexuality free from the male gaze, and focused on physcic freedom alongisde political liberation. My creative writing piece was at first a queer love story, though through the course of the project the story has become more abstracted and surreal. Whether it is through tarot, archetypal symbolism or magical realism. the divine I think that feminine and queer identities are often represented through the fantastical, either because society does not allow them to be directly expressed, or because so called "irrational" or "fanciful" images and ideas have often been associated with femininity (shamed by the dominant patriarchal narrative of "enlightenment" and "reason"). I want to tap into this artistic tradition of feminist surrealism in my work, so I abstracted the original writing and made the comic more obviously surreal, creating a moon woman (associations of occult feminity) as one of the protagonists.

MAGICAL REALIST AUTHORS
In parallel with looking at Carrington's work, I started thinking about what text I would have in my comic. I wanted to start developing images even if I wasnt quite sure what my story was going to be so I started to experiment with a passage from a short story by Carmen Maria Machado who writes magical realist feminist short stories. The dream imagery and menacing, dystopian feeling fitted well with the unsettling feeling I wanted to achieve visually. I also started experimenting with fragmenting texts and images, breaking them up so it was harder to make sense of them, in order to abstract the comic.

David B.'s work is monotone but the imaginative brushwork creates a vast movement and range within the work

LOUISE BOURGEOIS: VISITING THE WOVEN CHILD EXHIBTION

‘I have always had a fascination with the magic power of the needle. The needle is used to repair the damage. It's a claim to forgiveness.’- the artist.

Only after researching Bourgeois did I learn that the exhibition title was informed by her experience of working in her family’s tapestry business- but the title (without me consciously realising it) prompted me to use weaving and stitching as a metaphor for the fabric of life.

I am interested in the idea of material appearances and trompe l’oiel- in this case making 3D objects look 2D, and the way Bourgeois uses fabrics here as if they were building blocks confirmed that playing with materials can be an end in itself.

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Bourgeois also tells plays with narrative and sequence: here, she creates pages of a fabric “book”, and although there are some common themes and motifs, no one narrative dominates, leaving the viewer free to speculate and form different interpretations. I want to experiment with non linear narratives, or narratives that can be read in different ways, challenging the convention of one defined storyline within comic making.

CHARLES AVERY
Charles Avary's "Islanders" is a series of work connected by the fictional city of onomatopoeia. It is work surrounded entirely by its own context,spanning decades, with each generation of the fictional island growing and changing in different ways. I like the challenge to the viewer of who the art is for or the notion that art has to teach the viewer something specific, instead of being something that happens continously and organically inside of our minds whether we want it to or not. I want to create a parallel universe that is immersive like this- forcing the viewer into the world of the outsider. Outsider art's roots are in direct, unrestricted expression, often created by children, people in a state of mental illness, and amateur artists. I want to tap into that by creating imaginative and intuitive art that doesnt second geuss or filter itself, and in doing so cause the viewer to be immersed into that state.

Feminist exquisite corpses
To generate character ideas and to introduce an element of chance into my work I decided to use the surrealist game cadavre exquis to introduce and element of chance into the narrative, something I might develop on later by introducing things like dice rolling to decide a narrative.

The street of Crocodiles, Brothers Qauy
The directors don't literally try to depcit the short story the animation is based on but conjure in their own words the "mechanical realities and manufactured pleasures" of the text. If I am thinking of basing my project on a text I want to challenge literal depictions of things and play with non linear narrative structures.

Simon Scheiber
"The Lighthouse"
A neo noir stop motion animation about a lighthouse keeper who goes on an artistic journey which transforms him into another world

Katherine Morling
I want to play with 2D and 3D in the same way she does- taking something 2D and making it look 3D, so that the person feels they have been transported into the world of the comic.
She describes her work as "pieces of narrative in my progressing story" representing "my inner searching,shown outwardly in doemstic and uncanny scenes".

Gosh! Comics
I want my comic to sit somewhere between illustration and fine art, so I went to look at what professional comic artists are doing now in the underground comic scene. Zines and self publishing are important references to me as they represent an experimental side of image making that doesnt have to appeal to a publisher, and I found a lot of inspiration in Michael Kennedy's minicomic from webcomic series Mint. I want to try using abstract imagery like he does to convey figurative things, and experiment with surrealism in comics- juxtaposing words and images that leave a lot up to the reader. I was also inspired by the style of Charlo Frade's "Goatherded" with its washed out colour, fluid warped lines and lack of words- I want to experiment with the idea of a "silent comic" as I love the ambiguity of the gaps between the images.

I definitely want my comic to be on the more surreal/indie end of things, and although I like the way the gridded panels of both these comics gives a deadpan or neutral tone, I want to experiment a lot more with formatting and frames.

I love the playfulness of this interactivity- I want to do something interactive, maybe even with an element of chance, as if the viewers of my work were having a tarot reading, (something that in today's context has become popular with several oppressed groups including the queer community). A tarot reading with friends is a way of caring for yourself and building community- its often religions or traditions that are seen as illegitimate that marginalised groups treasure after being let down by institutions.

Sophy Hollington
This artist's zines have been in my head since the start of this project, as well as her autonomic tarot deck. She references paganism and alchemy with her intricate lino cuts whilst keeping her themes modern and relevant. In one of her zines she includes a set of stickers which can also be used as impromptu tarot cards within the zine to "seal your fate".

Lee Lai
I love the artist's contrast of fine line work and very textured inky washes. I want to create this in my comic and also take inspiration from the colour scheme. This artist captures the kind of everyday intimacy comics can portray- my comic will be focused more on interpersonal relationships as here than big plot points or action moments.

Wicca and the Spiral Goddess
I wanted to experiment with symbols traditionally associated with femininity and the divine feminine- the moon was a big part of this, as was the spiral goddes, the wiccan Godess representing femininity. Recently a lot of women and queer people have been embracing wicca as a religion and the term "witch". I'm interested in the aesthetic and culture of modern day feminist witches, and although currently my style isnt directly referencing this, a lot of the symbols such as the moon, and the fable-like story, do reference this tradition.(Art on the right by Sue Redding)

Hilma Af Klimt
Klimt used geometrical and abstract forms to depict her spiritualism and belief in Theosophy. I love the colour and simple forms of her work, though they also give a slightly culty, unsettling edge. I want to use the simple geometric forms in my final peice to convey the idea of many possible narratives forming into one, though I still need to find a balance betwen depicting ideas literally and in abstract forms in my work so the two are integrated.

Experimenting with spiritualism and shapes (left) which eventually led "The Spinner" illustration

Scott Mcloud
"Making Comics"
Mcloud's making comics has influenced many things about my project, from the idea of seeing comic frames as time to the "Choice of moment" as Mcloud explins it (the section you focus on when you are choosing what image to depict within each panel), to types of transitions between panels such as non-seqiturs and aspect-to-aspect trainsitons, all of which have been crucial within my practice, changing the visual choices I make within my comic.

Georges Méliès "A Trip to The Moon"
In addition to "The street of Crocodiles" and "The Lighthouse", later on in my project when I was deciding what my animations should look like, "A trip to the moon" was the first film ever made, and a key inspiration for the aesthetic both of my animations and my exhibtion in general. The retro sci-fi look and jerky stop motion quality of it were exactly what I was looking for, and I decided to attempt to recreate this within my animations. My moon lantern was inspired by the rich texture of Méliès' moon.

The Three Fates
I took the idea of the 3 fates from Greek mythology, where they are called "Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos", though I used the English names "The spinner" "The Drawer of Threads" and "The unturning", partly because it sounded more folkloric and partly because I want it to be intelligible in the exhibition. I am interested in using weaving the tapestry as a metaphor for the creative process- and for making stories, from the Spinner who starts the process, to the drawer of threads who selects the narrative, to the Unturning,finally ending the story. I like the idea of parallel narratives crossing and intertwining like thread on a loom, and I want to convey this sense metaphor within my animations.

Emma Talbot's tapestries have had a major influence on my work- the way she uses threads to act as links between narratives. I want to recreate the way she uses illustration with fabric within my own prop experimentation.

Winsor Mccay
Has been a huge influence in the formatting and layout of my comic, encouraging me to try different elements such as inbetweening- where a frame is placed in between where two would normally go- and using extreme perspectives.

UNDERGROUND COMICS AND ZINES-
Contextual Research

COMICS THEORY & OTHER COMICS

Chris Ware- "Building Stories"
Ware's comics aren't always easy to figure out- they straddle comics nd fine art- something I am hoping to do. I want to make my comic something you decipher- like Building Stories, rather than something you instantly understand

Alchemy Drawings & Rider Waite Tarot
I spend a lot of time with other queer artists and symbols from alchemy drawings seem to be reappearing in their own way. I love and use the Rider- Waite Tarot deck, and the symbols of alchemy (the ouroborous, the sun) have been an unconscious inspiration running throughout my work. I would like to incorporate the idea of a tarot reading somehow into my final peice.

SPIRITUAL BELIEFS, THEORIES AND PRACTICES

FRENCH UNDERGROUND COMICS

Looking at indie and underground comics in Paris really changed my style, especially Henri Dumas's Comic Den Dwellers- 2nd image on top row- as it bordered fine art and seemed to be as much about optical experimentation as narrative. This changed the way I depicted the 3 fates illustrations I did at the end, solidifying one of my starting ideas of playing with abstract forms to depict complex concepts. Audrey Hess's DIY never ending spiral comic relativite was perfecting for further inspiring the contstruction and folding of my own, not least because of the moon character within it. I have finally found an audience for my work- underground french comic fans- and its very specific. I also loved some of the others pictured here for their refusal to make sense and their mixture of self publishing f*** you culture with detailed penmanship and the craft of a professional cartoonist.