Salome’s Last Dance

A pen and ink illustration based off of Wilde’s play Salome.

Also, check out the movie by the same name:

I return!

I’m back after a long hiatus.  I’ve been quite busy teaching animation and working on some of my other artwork.

This ink drawing is not directly related to Dorian Gray but I thought it had similar audience appeal so to speak.  It’s a small drawing of the Mad Tea Party from Alice in Wonderland.

I brought back some of my Decadent aesthetic into this image with the poppy flowers and the steam.

The Latest News

I know that I have disappeared for a while!  I finished and defended my thesis already.  Now I am just waiting for graduation to sneak up on me.  I still plan on working with Dorian Gray in terms of creating new artwork related to the novel.

Currently, I have been taking a break from Dorian Gray (after living with the novel for a year, I feel like some distance is necessary).   I have been working on some oil paintings as well as a digital painting.  Updates regarding those works can be found via my dA website.

Dorian Gray film

Today I watched the 2009 Dorian Gray movie with Ben Barnes.

Here’s the trailer for every one who is curious:

I thought that it was an enjoyable movie.  The portrait’s special effects were somewhat bizarre and (as you can tell from my artwork) I feel like the decayed image should never really be shown in its entirety.

However, I’d definitely watch the movie again.  It had some good moments and some really well shot scenes.

Ben Barnes is also sufficiently attractive that I can forgive the director for casting someone who isn’t blond a la true Dorian.

To Kill this Monstrous Soul-Life

This is my re-imagining of the final scene of Dorian Gray.  Once again, I do not let the viewer see the portrait.  The last scene is a type of autoerotic penetration.

The Temptation

Lord Henry seduces Dorian in Chapter 2 of the novel.

Stylistically this image is informed by Aubrey Beardsley but also by the photographs of F. Holland Day and, especially, Guglielmo Pluschow.

Art Nouveau Lily

Another lily in Alphonse Mucha’s style that will be used as a textual embellishment in my thesis.

The Secret

Dorian is about to reveal the portrait to Basil.  At this moment in the novel, Dorian has already lost himself completely to his doppelganger.  I wanted to signal that by having him almost be consumed by the pattern of the curtain.

Opium Dreams

This image is informed by Chapter 11 of Dorian Gray.  Dorian is surrounded by several of the objects he collects.

He has flutes that he mentions are used to trance cobras.  He also becomes obsessed with Catholicism and church objects.  He then turns to mysticism – thus the human skull.  In order to allude to mysticism, I have also fashioned him as The Devil of the tarot deck.  He also attends parties filled with exotic flowers.  For the exotic flowers, I turned to JK Huysmans’ novel A Rebours.  I picked the anthurium leaf and the amorphophallus (corpse flower), which Des Esseintes becomes fascinated with.

Frontispiece

This is going to be the frontispiece for my thesis.  It is a stylized self-portrait with poppies.  I decided to do a self-portrait because it will emphasize the theme of mirroring and multiplying the self explored in Dorian Gray.