Polish painter Zdzislaw Beksinski is an artist whose name I ran across in the links section of some other artist’s page, and at the time I didn’t think he had any relation to metal whatsoever, other than perhaps as a visual inspiration. His work is so unbelievably cool and so completely metal that I kept coming back to it. After finding some more information about him I learned that Beksinski’s paintings actually have been used by several bands, including Nightbringer, Leviathan and Blood of Kingu. His unique visual style has also probably served as inspiration for numerous other bands and artists in the genre.
Beksinski was quite prolific and moved through numerous styles over the course of his life. He is perhaps best known (certainly in the metal world) for his output during his “fantastic period,” which lasted from the 1960s through the 1980s and saw Beksinski producing paintings featuring dark, disturbing and surrealistic imagery. His art depicts alien landscapes, strange decaying textures, and mysterious hooded or skeletal figures. The disturbing, otherworldly nature and skeletal elements of his work often causes Beksinksi to be compared with H.R. Giger. Beksinski himself said of his painting during this period that he wished to paint “in such a manner as if I were photographing dreams”.
Unfortunately, Beksinksi was tragically murdered in 2005 over what sounds like a petty disagreement with a teenage aquaintance. In his later years he had shifted to a sparser, more abstract style and also experimented with digital art and photography manipulation.
Beksinski fortunately has several websites dedicated to his work. His (extremely well-done!) official site is located at http://www.beksinski.pl/, and is one of the only sites I’ve been to where the embedded music is actually a good thing.
There is also an extensive gallery of his work at the Dmochowski Gallery site, especially useful if you get tired of the flash browsing on the official site.
You can also buy Beksinski limited edition art prints from The Belvedere Gallery. At $395.00 each they are kind of expensive, but having a Beksinski print in your house seems worth the money to me!
Finally you can buy a few cheaper prints as well as some books on Beksinski from Amazon.com. The Fantastic Art of Beksinski seems to be a good representation of his work.
It’s been awhile since I’ve featured an artist, but this one should be worth the wait. A friend of mine turned me on to the work of American photographer Joel-Peter Witkin, whose artwork is not something you forget once you’ve seen it. Witkin is generally known for using people with various physical deformities or abnormalities in his photography, as well as corpses and other body parts. He apparently travelled to Mexico in order to more freely have access to corpses and such, because obviously that sort of thing is frowned upon here in the states.
Witkin’s final works are an astounding combination of beauty and perversion. Aside from the striking imagery and subject matter, many of his photographs are highly symbolic, often recalling religious scenes or classical paintings. Witkin also frequently scratches, pierces or otherwise damages the negatives in order to give the final image a distinct, old-fashioned look.
Witkin’s work has not escaped the eye of the metal community. One of his more famous photographs, “The Kiss,” which depicts two halves of a severed head kissing each other, was used as the cover art for Pungent Stench’s Been Caught Buttering album. His Man Without a Head photograph was also used as an album cover, although I can’t seem to remember who. Any of you deathgrind fans out there know which band that was?
Witkin doesn’t have a website but he has published several books of his work. Here are a few to check out:
• Witkin (1995) - a great hardcover containing a huge number of Witkin’s photos
• Joel-Peter Witkin (photofile) (2008) - a paperback with 64 of Witkin’s photos
• Joel-Peter Witkin (2007) - a great introduction to Witkin’s work
Check out the official Flickr profile for Norwegian folk metallers Wardruna at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wardruna/
It doesn’t contain very many photos at the moment, but it does have some rehearsal and recording photos of the band. The coolest part though is a series of photos that document the band fashioning a drum out of deer hide.
Wardruna includes ex-Gorogoth members Gaahl and Kvitrafn. They released their first album Runaljod - Gap Var Ginnunga last year.
Finally a metal band woke up and used a painting from one of my favorite artists, Francis Bacon. Seriously, how can an artist who did a series of paintings of popes screaming in agony not have his art used in some fashion by the underground metal scene?
Francis Bacon was a highly successful Irish figurative painter in the 20th century. His artwork is known for its abtract, distorted figures and tortured imagery. He painted a series of works depicting screaming Papal heads or torsos, and other themes included crucifixions and grotesque self portraits or portraits of friends. H.R. Geiger has stated that Bacon’s work was a strong inspirational force behind his creations for the film Alien.
Anyway, the winner (unless there are other bands using Bacon’s work that I’m not aware of) is Prosanctus Inferi, a death metal band who will be releasing their first album Pandemonic Ululations of Vesperic Palpitation later this year. Their album cover uses a portion of Bacon’s Head I painting. Check out the cover art below.
You can learn more about Francis Bacon on Wikipedia, and check out a couple galleries containing some of his work here and here.
Metal illustrator Mike Hrubovcak has managed to get his artwork used in a portion of an upcoming Hollywood movie titled “Dream House.” The film is a thriller starring Daniel Craig and Naomi Watts, and it involves Daniel Craig’s character and his family moving into a new house and eventually discovering that it was the scene of a horrible crime involving some of the former owners. Of course, bad things then start to happen to Daniel Craig and his family.
Hrubovcak’s contribution occurs in a scene where a young ‘metal’ couple share an apartment and have death metal posters all over their walls. Hrubovcak has previously worked with bands like Decrepit Birth, Sinister, Brain Drill, Rumpelstiltskin Grinder, Mortician and Grave, and apparently some of his designs for those bands and others will be shown in the film.
Kudos to Hrubovcak for getting his artwork into the film. Speaking of dark, metal-ish art in films, I’m still trying to figure out who did the awesomely creepy art for the movie Suspect Zero. For those that haven’t seen it, the movie involves Ben Kingsley as a psychotic remote viewer who freaks out a lot and draws pictures of dead children and other cool stuff. I definitely recommend it.
If you’re not familiar with Mike Hrubovcak’s artwork, check out his website at VisualDarkness.com.
Black metal logo artist Christophe Szpajdel will have a book out early next year featuring hundreds of his logos, along with some photography that helped to inspired the artwork. The book will be 272 pages long, and will chronicle Szpajdel’s work in several different styles, from his more nature-influenced designs to some of his newer art deco creations.
You can find a bit of info about the Lord of the Logos book at Gestalten, including several sample pages. It looks like there isn’t much explanation or commentary from Szpajdel itself, which is kind of disappointing, but it also looks like the book is going to be packed with logos. Having a large chunk of Szpajdel’s output consolidated into a book seems like it should be really interesting for artist and designer types as well as black metal fans, and I’m very much looking forward to this coming out.
Saint John is the man behind Inkshadows, which has provided album art for black metal bands like Svartsyn, Arckanum and End. His style of simple pen & ink, black and white illustrations is easily recognizable, and like many artists who use similar techniques, the rawness and roughness of his work makes it perfect for metal music. Many of Arckanum’s recent album covers, such as those for ÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞ, Grimalkinz Skaldi and splits with Svartsyn and Sataros Grief were all Inkshadows creations.
Aside from his album cover work, he’s also done numerous illustrations for various books and magazines. While his other illustrations are pretty decent, there’s a certain ‘ugliness’ that he imparts on many of his metal-related creations that I think really set them apart and give them a uniquely dark feel. His recent work with Arckanum and End is probably the best example of what I’m talking about.
The Inkshadows website seems to be down at the moment, but you can get in touch with Saint John and see some examples of his work on the Inkshadows MySpace page.
Dying Fetus and Relapse Records are basically ripping off what Suffocation and Nuclear Blast did earlier this year for the release of Suffocation’s Blood Oath: They are holding a Dying Fetus art contest for fans to wield their artistic talents in exchange for Fetus-related prizes and merchandise.
The Dying Fetus contest sounds a little more elaborate, and certainly the prizes seem pretty sweet. You are to design your own ‘panel of artwork’ that fits the themes of the record and prizes include show tickets, CDs, posters, shirts, etc. There will be three prize winners plus 10 runners-up, so they apparently have quite a lot of stuff to give away for this contest.
“Descend Into Depravity” seems like a theme that could be quite open to interpretation, so it’ll be interesting to see what people submit. The contest runs until November 15th.
» Dying Fetus Contest details
Robert Høyem is a Norwegian artist whose design company, At The Ends of The Earth Designs, has done illustration and design for numerous metal bands. Some of his clients include Shining, Drautran, Iskald, Galar, Agua de Annique, Den Saakaldte, and Reverend Bizarre.
Høyem’s style varies quite a bit; he apparently uses several different techniques and is very flexible. Some of his work, such as the cover paintings created for Elite and Iskald, is pretty similar to the style of Travis Smith and similar artists, featuring various elements blurred in and out of one another and great use of color. Other pieces, such as his covers for Galar and Drautran, are more landscape-oriented and minimal. He also has some works that are mostly photorealistic with some additional noise and effects added.
You can see a great deal of Høyem’s work at his website, AtTheEnds.com. Be sure to check out the section of unused artwork, which might come in handy if you’re looking for album cover art in a hurry.
Photographer Peter Beste’s amazing True Norwegian Black Metal photography book is available again, so if you’re an idiot like me and waited too long to get a copy, now’s your chance. For now you’ll have to order directly from Peter through PayPal, although I’d expect that he’ll have a webstore set up shortly, as well as copies available from retailers like Amazon.com.
For information on how to order, check out this post on Peter Beste’s MySpace page.
For more info on the book itself, you can check out my earlier post about the True Norwegian Black Metal book and my artist feature on Peter Beste. Peter’s website at PeterBeste.com also has previews and details about the book.
