Ars Necronomica 2017
Our biennial exhibition is both an independent entity and part of a tradition begun in 2013 with the revitalization of NecronomiCon Providence. Each installment is a chapter in a larger story — our curatorial perception of not just a Lovecraftian aesthetic, but how we see weird art itself.
In this iconographiam, we present a focused range of these perceptions, intending to present a glimpse beyond expected aesthetic horizons, including Amy Borezo’s Wilmarth Farm blasted to minimalism while boasting a visual lineage akin to Max Ernst; Peter Ferguson’s traditionally delineated environment harboring the anomalous, Sara Bardi’s playful Bok-like felinity, and Kurt Komoda’s logical encounter amidst the Dreamlands.
We invite you to witness this conversation made up of different visual languages. Spoken by many hands that grant license to invent, reinvent, and synthesize the questions of what we want, need, and have yet to dream of The Visible Weird.
John Jude Palencar has been a guest in Middle Earth, the world of The Dark Tower, and now…Providence.
The light and shadow of his art has illuminated a full range of fantasy and horror literature, including the work of Tolkien, Ursula LeGuin, Edgar Allan Poe, Octavia Butler and H. P. Lovecraft. Among his first exposures to RI’s Eldritch Son was the adaptation of “Pickman’s Model” on Rod Serling’s Night Gallery: “The paintings that appeared on that television series were inspirational as well.” One can see some of that ghoulish physiognomy looking out from the cover of this Souvenir Book…
A lot of people see Palencar’s work and compare it to that of (one of his admitted influences) Andrew Wyeth. This writer also ascribes similarities to the paintings of Odd Nerdrum and the photography of Joel-Peter Witkin. The Goya-esque “Graceful Witch” or Brueghelian Hellscape in the study for “Terror in The Year 11 A.D.” show other hues at the darker edge of that palette. The latter was used as a cover for one of the Lovecraftian collections John has composed without resorting to specific Mythos tropes: “I could revisit his [HPL’s] work time and time again and still create a variety of entirely different artistic interpretations of his writing.” Palencar’s oeuvre therefore is not as ‘commercial’ as might be thought at first given his high-profile work for Stephen King and others. He does the work of a Master, but not one of the obvious.
One of the sketches in this portfolio was drawn during John’s Artist in Residence stint at the Cill Rialaig Art Project. This is on The Skellig Islands World Heritage Site: “When I first visited the Skelligs back in 1999 I said if Lucas or Spielberg were ever to see this place today they’ll want to feature it [in one of their films].” Now imagine Rey meeting Luke for the first time in Star Wars: The Force Awakens near that hill in “Ireland Eclipse”…
Regardless, whether from A Galaxy Far Far Away or his birthplace in Ohio, The City of Roger Williams is honored to welcome our 2017 Artist Guest of Honor John Jude Palencar in all his attending light and shadows.–TjZ
Translated by Scott Nicolay. Carmichael, CA: Dim Shores (2017). Reviewed by The joey Zone.
Despite having been reprinted several times and available in translation online, this Dim Shores edition of J. H. Rosny’s novelette of man’s conflict with an inexplicable life force is the one to own.
The first apparent reason for that is the cover (with additional interior ‘anatomical’ drawings) depicting the title ‘Shapes’ by Michael Bukowski. Online views do not do this work justice—one must hold the printed book to see the subtle gradations in colour of sky, the aforementioned Xipehuz and surrounding landscape. Perhaps a larger version should grace the exhibition of some upcoming survey of The Visual Weird as an example of this illustrator’s best work.
A second reason is the inclusion of Scott Nicolay’s essay that first appeared in a slightly different form as an installment of his online blog Stories from The Borderland (on December 13, 2016). The revival of this work could be explained by his belief that “…all texts exist as part of larger assembles that include not only other texts and their authors, but readers and editors, publishers, artists, critics, agents and other agents.” [my italics]
That agency was given by Lila Garrott in her own blog Strange Horizons as a raison d’etre of a Rosny Revival. She mentions “…eager editors [who] are interested in the chase…liable to claim pressing importance.” (August 20th, 2012). This includes earlier translators Daniele Chatelaine and George Stosser who maintain Rosny tried “as hard as any writer who uses words and addresses a human audience to decenter humankind.” Man’s ‘cosmic insignificance’ appears as a leitmotif in later works by the author, La Morte de la Terre (1910) and Le Grande enigma (1920). While parallels to the work of, say, H. P. Lovecraft might be made, Scott maintains that an “excessive emphasis on Lovecraft in so much Weird Fiction scholarship has led us to associate The Weird with ugliness and grotesquerie” (one would ironically note Nicolay and other such writers as China Mieville’s emphasis on HPL in other Weird criticism sometimes when there is no need). The Xipehuz and Rosny are their own ultramundane genus.
A counter action to that ugliness is this new translation’s third and most important reason for acquisition—it’s sheer prose poetry: “The song of the sunset swelled and hovered, its harmonies swirling in eddies.” Nicolay’s version is also interesting in comparison to Jason Colavito’s recent online translation (jasoncolavito.com/the-xipeacutehuz1.html). “The death knell of the world’s end or perhaps the resignation of the red man of the Indian jungles” in the earlier becomes the Indian prairies in this printed edition. Which (continent/nationality) is it? This writer will now have to acquire the other translations of this. If the main purpose then of this publication is a thorough reread this author’s work, well, then mission accomplished!
All of Scott Nicolay’s Stories from The Borderland series does similar important work. It’s range is analogous to Lin Carter’s selections for the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in the early 1970s. Another hinted at revival could be that of the oeuvre of Jean Ray (an accompanying depiction of ‘The Schoolmaster’ from Ray’s “The Mainz Psalter” by Michael Bukowski would no doubt be perfection….). “O Translators,” exhorts Lila Garrott, “given the pleasures and strengths of the excavations you’ve performed for us…may we have more of these marvelous stories?” To which we can only implore the translator of this Xipehuz with a Francophilic affectation: Oui, si’l vous plait!
Ars Necronomica 2015
In the two years since our last convention, we were made aware of more biographical details on “Perry”, who cut the famous black gum paper portrait of H. P. Lovecraft from life. This work is a valuable depiction of the writer at age 35, which stands apart from the wealth of photographic representation and yields within a gaunt, featureless contour a stately aesthetic true to The Man.
HPL not only had his silhouette done in 1925 by this Coney Island and Harlem artist, but on a second occasion a few months later commissioned a portrait of Sonia Greene, then his wife. Obviously a full regard of the individual and a rapport between the two men was likely. New York historian Eric K. Washington essays all additional facts on Perry available in an online post archived on the excellent Gotham History Blotter.
This artist portfolio regards not just the individuals included but their work—that always should speak for itself. Giving credit where due, we respectfully include in their company Lovecraft Portraitist and American Folk Artist
E. J. PERRY
and dedicate this iconographiam to him. –TjZ
The joey Zone
Twenty-one years ago, we got The Starry Wisdom and learned of a new Haunter of the Dark.
D. M. Mitchell’s tribute to H. P. Lovecraft seemed inadequate to some (this writer not one of them), despite the usual gang of acolytes: Campbell, Lumley, Price, Webb, etc. The first edition’s beautiful stippled chrome wraps by Peter Smith contained much that struck average Mythos readers as discordant and unbeautiful. Most reviewers were in accord, however, in praising its illustrated version of “The Call of Cthulhu.”
Etched with a torrential downpour of the finest line upon line, no dream of Wilcox could ever have been limned in a darker hue. Inspector Legrasse’s discovery of something “only poetry or madness could do justice to” in the Louisiana swamps was accurately and abominably shown over a two-page cinematic spread. In the climax, ravening for delight from a dark dream, the dread Old One himself is depicted from reality: a jumble of Futurist midnight.
Under those same wraps were two manipulated images in the manner of an Ernst or Sätty. Both were anatomically correct in their X-ray vision of some things human or crinoid. The talent of both “Call” and these were work of the same hand.
Six years earlier, this talent had debuted in another adaptation of the Canon with “The Haunter of the Dark.” That work, along with “Call of Cthulhu” and pages from an unfinished version of “The Dunwich Horror” were collected by Creation Oneiros in The Haunter of the Dark and Other Grotesque Visions. The 2006 edition includes “The Great Old Ones: Evocations” by Alan Moore, accompanied by more of that hand’s illustrations.
This same hand — and one other — belongs to John Coulthart, who has now long been one of Lovecraft’s most accomplished artistic interpreters. His body of work includes design for Ellen Datlow’s Lovecraftian anthology Lovecraft’s Monsters (with a followup on the way from Tachyon Publications); work for the Call of Cthulhu gaming magazines The Unspeakable Oath and Book of Dark Wisdom; The Cthulhu Calendar for 2012; and work in An Exhibition of Unspeakable Things: Lovecraft’s Commonplace Book, held at the Maison d’Ailleurs in Switzerland in 2007.
We are extremely proud to exhibit John’s work here stateside. That work encapsulates both the legacy and the future of what we endeavor to present in ARS NECRONOMICA, making him an Artist Guest of Honor that not only we but Providence welcomes.
NecronomiCon, the First Edition, August 1993: The Lovecraft Society of New England decides “it would be appropriate to honor a person at each convention who had contributed significantly to the weird fiction field,” and by particularly continuing in a Lovecraftian tradition “in their own right.”1 A Lifetime Achievement Award is given to Mr. Robert Bloch, “The Author of PSYCHO,” who really began his career as a writer of ‘fan-fiction’, albeit gifted with the generous correspondence of that Gentleman Amateur of Providence Himself…
The Society‘s core members make up The Convention Committee for future gatherings (thru 2001). This presentation is officially designated The Robert Bloch Award after the writer is notified this in 1994 before his passing, as well as being given the blessing of his wife. The awardees henceforth include not only fiction writers but scholars who by investigating weird fiction help enrich our knowledge and imaginations as a result.
20 years later…
NecronomiCon-Providence, August 2013: The Lovecraft Arts & Sciences Council has decided (with advice from Robert M. Price and others) to respectfully reanimate and continue the tradition of bestowing this honor. As a notable community we salute the worthy now and those of you in Strange Aeons ahead who have always heard THE CALL…
“Let links fraternal all your band unite,
And art, not fame, determine what you write.”
— Howard Phillips Lovecraft, 1915
- NecronomiCon 2nd-5th Edition Program Guide.