Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I've been admiring Travis Louie's work online for about a year via the Circus Posterus artist group.I had an opportunity to meet and speak with Mr. Louie several months ago.He's a wonderfully nice, down to earth guy and a real professional.Being a cheapskate, I'd normally just save a couple of jpegs off the internet of artists I admire, but Mr. Louie was such a gentleman I was prompted to buy his book.
I was not disappointed.The book is lovely from cover to cover.The format is large enough to see details of the paintings, but not so large as to be a Pretentious Art Monograph.I'd recommend the hardcover edition. The cover has a nice embossed effect as if the cover illustration were inset, and the endpapers are faux-antiqued.Book nerds will appreciate the attention to detail here.I have a strong suspicion Mr. Louie is a book nerd as well.
Inside, the format is of a full-page portrait painting facing a single-page biographical sketch of the character(s) depicted.Truly the characters remind me of Edward Gorey's, but brought to life in front of Mr. Daguerre's camera.The paintings are masterful, beautifully rendered portraits of monsters and weirdos. Mr. Louie is firstly a visual artist, involved in the gallery world and beyond.To compare apples to oranges, the prose sketches are the weaker part of the book.But I am happy to forgive his being a lesser Shakespeare: this book is first and foremost a book of paintings.(At any rate, I'd rather read the exploits of Miss Bunny and Krampus over the deathly boring text of the Pretentious Art Monograph any day!)
The work overall gives the impression that there is more to be explored with these characters and the universe they inhabit. It remains to be seen if Mr. Louie will continue in the portraiture vein or branch out into more narrative images.It would be interesting to see him collaborate with a writer of fantastical, historical-tinged fiction, or even to illustrate books in the tradition of the Hildebrandt brothers.
At this price point why not go for it?Highly recommended.
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Product Description:
Travis Louie s paintings come from the tiny little drawings and writings in his journals. He s created his own imaginary world that is grounded in Victorian and Edwardian times. It is inhabited by human oddities, mythical beings, and otherworldly characters who appear to have had their formal portraits taken to mark their existence and place in society. The underlining thread that connects all these characters is the unusual circumstances that shape who they were and how they lived. Some of their origins are a complete mystery while others are hinted at. A man is cursed by a goat, a strange furry being is discovered sleeping in a hedge, an engine driver can t seem to stop vibrating in his sleep, a man overcomes his phobia of spiders, etc, . . .Using inventive techniques of painting with acrylic washes and simple textures on smooth boards, he s created portraits from an alternate universe that may or may not have existed.
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