Contemporary artist Rachael Bridge brings a singular perspective to traditional portraiture. Saturated in palettes somehow both electric technicolor, sunless-somber (how the heck does she do that?) and shrouded in shadow, her subjects appear to vanish into the murmuring whispers of a dark and deeply personal wonderland.
Vespertine mysteries teem behind their luminous, milky gaze, but far from loveless and hollow, these otherworldly eyes offer a glimpse into the complexities of the human psyche, the very real-world themes of anxiety, isolation, dread, and despair.
See below for a gallery of some of my favorites amongst this artist’s shimmering twilit phantoms, and find Rachael here: website // Instagram
Sofía Bassi (1913-1998) was a Mexican surrealist painter and writer known for her dreamlike and introspective paintings, liquid and mysterious, often featuring ethereal anthropomorphic creatures and darkly fantastical landscapes, lost in space and time. Sometimes referred to as “magical impressionism,” Bassi’s work is often described as being both lush and unsettling and was praised for its originality and imagination. The artist herself observed that art was an elixir that she wanted to drink until the end of her career, to keep from dying.
Embarking on a path as exceptional as her artistic visions, Bassi was born into a wealthy family, but she rebelled against her upbringing and pursued a career in the arts. The free-spirited painter was married twice, but apparently, romance was not a priority, or she married a couple of duds, or maybe other people’s marriages are not my business, so I shouldn’t speculate, but whatever the case, both marriages ended in divorce. In a shocking incident that rivaled the plot of popular police procedural programs or true crime podcasts, she was convicted of murdering her son-in-law (some theorize that she took the fall for her daughter Claire, read more here) and sentenced to several years in prison.
While incarcerated, Bassi passionately continued painting, including her first-ever mural–painted on the walls of her own cell, and her works from this period are remembered as some of her most renowned, reflecting the darkness of her troubled state of mind. In 1969, Bassi was released from prison and wrote a book about the experience in 1978, and in January 2011, a documentary was released in Mexico titled “Acapulco 68,” which also recounted the incidents. In the ensuing years, the artist frequently participated in round tables and conferences, appearing on radio and television to discuss artistic and academic topics. Receptive to inspiration and generative energies to the end, she painted and exhibitedt her work until her death in 1998.
A creative force who lived a life that was both unconventional and tragic, Bassi’s story is a fascinating one– her work, a testament to her creativity and her resilience.
In this month’s newsletter, I featured artwork by Frants Diderik Bøe (1820-1891), a Norwegian painter of still lifes, landscapes, and nature scenes, who studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. As a lover, though certainly not even close to an expert, of floral still lifes, I had never seen his work before and was immediately enthralled with his frequent painterly inclusions of my two favorite things: flowers and jewelry.
At the height of his career in the mid-19th century, Bøe is established as having been internationally recognized painter, though sadly, according to the Norwegian Biographical Lexicon, “posterity has not paid much attention to Frants Bøe…[which]…may be connected with the fact that he cultivated a genre that has never been particularly strong in the Norwegian context.”
He seems to have been a restless soul on his artistic journey, traveling between Copenhagen, Belgium, The Netherlands, and France, but his eight years in Paris are noted as having been his most creative period as an artist, selling pictures to the French government, King Oscar 1 and the National Gallery, as well as in Great Britain and America. In 1855 he was given the very cool and honorable task of representing the Scandinavian countries during the World Exhibition in Paris.
In midlife, his body betrayed him –as our human meat suits are wont to do once we pass a certain bummer threshold–and this one was a particularly nasty affection for an artist: Bøe experienced a marked weakening of his color vision– a disorder which periodically made him unable to paint and when we was able, the results were sadly, seriously noticeable. These later works were said to be lacking in the quality seen in the paintings from his glowing Parisian heyday.
It was an unfortunate end for Bøe, I’m afraid. In November 1891, he was found unconscious on a bench in Nygårdsparken, affected by what was later recognized by a stroke. The constable who found him disastrously misread the situation and placed him in drunk custody. By the time the mistake was discovered, it was too late to do anything to save him.
What an upsetting close to the story of Frants Diderik Bøe! Still, I am glad to have learned about him, and below I’m including my favorites amongst his œuvre of luminous, jewel-scattered floral tableaux.
A Ladies Boudoir, 1865
Still life with flowers and jewelry, 1866
Still life with conch shell and jewels, 1870
Still life with roses and jewelry box, 1879
Still life with jewellery box, conch, bird and flowers in vase (date?)
A Walk With the Beast and Dark Interval from my personal collection.
I first officially learned of Argentinian artist Hector Garrido when attempting to figure out the artist of the livid, crimson-shrouded book cover with an aggressive succubus hollering at a raven under a bright, glowing full moon. “Hey, bird! Fuck you, bird!” is what I imagine that she’s shouting for reasons of her own, none of my business, probably.
I had originally seen it posted on someone’s Instagram, and those images are more annoying to grab for reverse image search purposes, but not impossible, so I found it (on Will Erickson’s blog, of course!) and here we are–it’s Hector Garrido!
…and it turns out that I have been enjoying Garrido’s art for YEARS without realizing it.
Hector Garrido cover art for Nancy Drew Enemy MatchHector Garrido cover art for The Ghost Belonged to Me
Of course, the Nancy Drew mystery books that I read when I was much younger were the hardback editions with a more dated look from an earlier era and a different artist, but a few years later, when I was 9 or 10 or so, I definitely recall finding the newer paperbacks in the library and being gobsmacked that you were allowed to update and change the way the characters in these books looked! But a pretty, intrepid young detective creeping up a cobwebby dark staircase is dreamy to my eye rendered by any artist’s hand, and I got used to the changes and even found myself getting excited to see various artistic interpretations of the stories and series that I love–and I remain thrilled to this day.
Another book I was surprised to see displaying the work of Hector Garrido was The Ghost Belonged to Me, by Richard Peck, one of the eerie Blossom Culp stories I loved as a child. I’ve written before of another one in this series, Ghosts I Have Been with cover art by Rowena Morrill, and I’m always so tickled when my search for a cover artist inevitably leads me back to these beloved tales and characters.
Garrido also did a lot of G.I. Joe art, but eh. Not interested in that. I know, I know, iconic formative stuff for lots of folks! Just not my bag. However, he also did covers for several of the Avon Satanic Gothic titles in the 70s and that most definitely would have been my little ten-year-old jam!
Hector Garrido art for A Walk With The Beast
Hector Garrido art for Dark Interval
Sadly, while looking into his life and work, I only learned today that Hector Garrido passed away in 2020. In his own words, here’s a bio on this prolific artist of the lurid and lovely, baleful and beautiful.
“As a young artist I immigrated to the United States. I was professionally active here beginning in the 1950s. Beginning around 2000, I went into semi-retirement, painting devotional subjects. I am now retired.
I am best known to fans of GI Joe and for such book series such as The Three Investigators (I painted all the Crimebusters covers), Danny Dunn, the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, The Destroyer (Remo Williams), and the Baroness.
My original artwork for GI Joe was featured on the 1980s-era merchandise packaging. For book publishers, I painted the covers of numerous sci-fi, (gothic) romance, and thriller/horror books. Perhaps most notably in the horror genre, I painted the iconic covers for TM Wright’s “Strange Seed”/”Children” series. I was also a Time Magazine cover artist, and my 1969 cover, “Astronauts” is in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery.”
You’ll find several albums of original paintings in Garrido’s flickr account, and here is a list at ISFDB of much, much more cover art that he was responsible for– though I don’t believe it to be at all comprehensive.
Below I’ve shared some of my favorites among the gothic romance covers he did, brimming with ghostly damsels and their requisite candelabras, haunted castles looming and leering, and ridiculously sumptuous with atmosphere and tension.
Hector Garrido cover art for The Devil’s Dance
Hector Garrido cover art for The Dark Gondola
Hector Garrido cover art for The Girl from Yesterday
Hector Garrido cover art for Storm House
Hector Garrido cover art for The Medea Legend
Hector Garrido cover art for Beast in View
Hector Garrido cover art for Pray for a Brave Heart
This interview was originally shared on Haute Macabre July 19, 2017.
San Diego, CA-based artist Ivonne Garcia’s enthusiastic penchant for blades might give one pause if one didn’t know the sort of slicing and slashing that she indulged in. No, this knife-wielding creator is not lurking around shadowy corners, chuckling low, awaiting the throat of an unsuspecting passer-by. No, indeed! Ivonne has instead translated this fondness for sharpened edges into an elegant artistic medium for emotive storytelling, with a current focus on paper-cutting and silhouettes – designed to “connect all things in the planar depths of simplicity and translating it into the emotional balance between the dark and the light.”
Still, I like to imagine her cackling softly as she deftly creates each small cut.
(With apologies to the artist–this intro is not intended to imply that Ivonne might cut a bitch.)
What twisty (or twisted!) artistic path led to this current focus on paper-cutting and silhouettes? From the time that she was a small child, Ivonne shares, she had a propensity for being fairly accident prone–always the one getting hurt, falling, sticking her hands where they didn’t belong. After a traumatic compound femur fracture as a child which landed her in doctors’ offices quite a bit, she gained a more than passing familiarity with the medical world– and was of course terrified of anything pointy and prickly. Then, she notes, tattooing and piercings in her 20s changed that all up! “That said,” she adds, “I have always had an interest in the medical realm but not as a career path, so I guess is this one way to scratch that itch.”
“Wielding something sharp, toying and creating with a fetishist undertone. Playing with danger.”
Silhouettes were of interest to her because she enjoys the idea of attempting to tell a story through shadows, texture, light or lack thereof. “There is much room for the imagination, leaving the idea open to interpretation of who is viewing it.”
Ivonne’s art is influenced by an interest in the kooky, spooky, occult and her Mexican heritage. In her pre-teen years, she relocated from Southern CA to Mazatlan, Mexico, with her family and lived there for nearly seven years. It was during her time there that she began to explore her interest in art and expose herself to a more culturally appropriate representation of Mexico and the art and traditions that are part of that culture. “I was always drawn to high contrast imagery such as lino block printing like the work of Jose Guadalupe Posada. Eventually I became exposed to the art of papel picado, and while it is done for many celebratory occasions, the ones that came around during Dia De Muertos always appealed to me the most.”
Also noting a profound love for religious iconography of all kinds, (one of the few things that stuck around from the Catholic influence she was raised with), Ivonne ruefully adds that “the rules that came with religion never really agreed with me and it bred a lot of defiance and push-back; it only made sense that I found myself swaying towards a darker inclination. It just feels more accepting and comfortable.”
With regard to classic artistic influences, Ivonne lists Salvador Dali, Frida Kahlo, Remedios Varo, MC Escher, and Bosch amongst her key inspirations, and also shares a few current artistic crushes (many of which, I might add, are beloved of the Haute Macabre staff as well!): Elsa Mora, David Stoupakis, Mark Ryden, Darla Teagarden, Christopher Michael Hefner, Nicolas Bruno, Becky Munich, Tom Bagshaw, Daniel Martin Diaz, about which, Ivonne enthuses, “I can keep going, here! There is just so much damn awesome talent these days it blows my mind.”
Add all this to Ivonne’s never-ending love for “all things Halloween” and, she declares, “…it’s a tiki drink of spooky. You take it all in, and one mug later, you’re wasted on the awesome.”
I requested of Ivonne a virtual studio visit so that we might see the workspace where these delicate dissections and compositions take place, and if that weren’t pushy enough (you can’t take me anywhere) I asked if she might be moved to divulge any of her artistic routines and rituals as relates to her creativity and craft. Ivonne has kindly spilled a few secrets below (and no doubt has given us a few items to add to our collective wish-lists!)
“My ritual usually involves a pretty thorough cleaning of my desk because it eventually turns into paper scrap and confetti central. I usually set the tone by burning some incense of sorts. My personal favorites are: Vampire Blood (I know, cheesy as fuck but it smells so good), Papier d’Arménie, Palo Santo, and sage or copal resin I brought back from our travels in Guanajuato. Olfactory tone is so important to me so that not only will the room be fragrant but my personal fragrance will reflect my mood and headspace as well. I love all things Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, and my recent favorites are The Manuscript, Riding Crop Single Note, So Below, and Bulgarian Tobacco. When not doused in that precious, I usually wear By The Fireplace by Maison Margiela Replica, Oud Velvet Mood, or Baccarat Rouge 540 from Maison Francis Kurkdijian.
I am an absolute audiophile and cannot function without music in my life. Every part of my day involves music, and what I listen to depends on mood, emotion, and setting a tone. Creating art has to go hand in hand with music, 100%.
My taste is pretty broad, but most of what I listen to falls under the umbrella of IDM, shoegaze and electronic genres. Here are a few things I have listened to (read: played into the damn ground) while creating…”
I can keep going here…it sounds all snobby but I also love me a good session of pop, 80’s, His Purple Highness, and hair metal bands \m/”
Since we are on the subject of rituals, Ivonne recently created some splendidly witchy pieces for Ars Memoria’s Toil and Trouble show in April of this year. Regarding how this theme inspired her specific contributions, Ivonne explains that “Toil & Trouble was a lot of fun to work on because the subject just felt so comfortable. Working with Catherine Oleson as a curator was a breezy dream, and the other two artists involved, Bella Harris and Sophia Rapata – we all had a similar umbrella to work under. We agreed on a witchy and magical theme, and I took on the concept of the magical being and their familiar, their relationship, and connectivity. This was new for me, as most of my work has been incredibly human and feminine in nature… but this time around, I opened up to the incorporation of animal elements. This was my first time venturing into more three-dimensional work, and I couldn’t have been happier with the work produced and the manner in which it was received.”
Between the work she conjured for Toil & Trouble, and Reliquary, her duo show with Carrie Anne Hudson in October of 2016, Ivonne found herself requiring a small creative break. “Reliquary was very intimate in nature”, she observes, “and for me, personally, there is such thing as too much output, especially when you’re creating work as a form of personal therapy. I took a step back this year to continue doing more soul searching and really focus on quality over quantity.”
Aside from several group shows, she has lined up, and some potential collaborative work, she is taking the month of August off to spend in Japan with her family–and is very much looking forward to the inspiration that will come from it. After that, she concludes, “Fall and the Halloween season always bring on the most inspiration for me; it is, after all the most wonderful time of the year! I expect my shop to be filled with lots of goodies by then.”
Our wedding portrait, by Becky Munich. Click to embiggen.
Am I a little weepy? No…but that’s because I am outright SOBBING.
A million magical heartfelt thank yous to dearest Becky Munich for creating this weird, wondrous wedding portrait of Yvan and me based *somewhat* on an actual photo taken the afternoon we got married in February of last year.
We joked that ours was a sort of Ghibli-meets-Junji Ito aesthetic by way of Edward Gorey, and thus, an idea was born.
Look at all the little details! Eyeballs in the bouquet! A puppers with wings! I’M LEVITATING!
I had originally intended to commission Becky for this a year ago as a wedding gift, but I was slow in getting around to it, and it became an anniversary project instead.
Becky is a genius, and this is perfect. We are going to cherish it forever 🖤
A Sensitive Plant in a garden grew, And the young winds fed it with silver dew, And it opened its fan-like leaves to the light. And closed them beneath the kisses of Night.
And the Spring arose on the garden fair, Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere; And each flower and herb on Earth’s dark breast Rose from the dreams of its wintry rest.
But none ever trembled and panted with bliss In the garden, the field, or the wilderness, Like a doe in the noontide with love’s sweet want, As the companionless Sensitive Plant.
I first stumbled upon Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “The Sensitive Plant,” a lilting fairytale-poem with gorgeous, distinctive artwork by Golden Age illustrator Charles Robinson, when I was randomly searching for imagery from Robinson that I hadn’t seen before. I had just submitted my final edits to The Art of Fantasy (pub date September 7, 2023!) and I was feeling a bit bereft, the way you feel after a major project that has until that point, possessed all of your time and energy. A sort of “what now?” malaise.
Entranced by the lush, blooming, melancholic loveliness of the full-color plates, I lost a whole evening learning about this little book of “ephemeral beauty and the aspiration to follow dreams when the reality of the senses fails.” (Peppin, Brigid & Micklethwait, Lucy, “Book Illustrators of the Twentieth Century,” p. 265).
It follows the observance of a beautiful, boundless garden full of aromatic roses and narcissus, snowdrops and violet, jasmine and hyacinth–and, of course, the titular Sensitive Plant– all flowering joyously in concert under the airy, exquisite hand of a nameless caregiver. Alas, the gentle gardener dies, and winter descends upon the fair Eden; the poem then becomes an ode to death and decay, and it’s a bit of a bummer from that point on.
On the subject of that anonymous Sensitive Plant: a spell cast upon me by the idea of this book, I found an inexpensive copy (sadly, it’s missing three plates), and I descended upon it as soon as it arrived. In the preface, the literary critic Edmund Gosse speculates as to what sort of specimen it might be, having all manner of contradictory qualities. Apparently, he reached out to an old friend and Oxford professor to shed some light on the subject. The gentleman hilariously noted, “… the botany of poets is a source of deep anxiety to botanists,” and Gosse goes on to say, “Shelley’s flower-lore is no exception.” For what it’s worth, scholars and readers conjecture that this psychic little plant may be mimosa pudica.
I only paid $50 for my copy, which seems like a steal given its fabulous condition and despite the fact that it’s missing some imagery. I’ve seen it being sold for upwards of $900, though!
The Sensitive Plant has also been illustrated by playwright and illustrator Laurence Houseman in an eerie, intricate Art Nouveau style, which can be seen in this blog post. Below, however, you will find more of Charles Robinson’s accompanying imagery to The Sensitive Plant.
cover art for The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson
I first saw the art of Ed Emshwiller–though I didn’t know it was Ed Emshwiller–on the cover of William Hope Hodgson’s The House On The Borderland, a book described by a friend and kindred lover of weird writing as “a found manuscript, swine creatures and the swift passing of the universe…is the narrator sane or not?”
As a matter of fact, if you are keen to compile a list of strange stories and terrifying tales, see their list of suggestions in this oldie-but-goodie blog post.
I don’t know if I loved the book, but I was absolutely obsessed with the cover art. And I don’t know what your idea of fun looks like, but for me, I derive fantastic enjoyment in trying to figure out who creates the art that I love–whether that takes the form of hunting down the source of annoying uncredited artwork on Instagram or Facebook, or, in this case, tracking down the artist responsible for decade’s old marvelously lurid cover. But honestly, I don’t think there was much detective work involved here. I just did a browser search for “house on the borderland cover artist,” and it was maybe the fourth search result. Super easy! Barely an inconvenience! It also led me to this cover by Alan Aldridge for the book, which is a lot of silly fun, too.
Super Science Fiction August, 1959
An astonishingly prolific and relatively successful artist, Ed Emshwiller (1925-1990) painted over 400 illustrations for the covers of sci-fi magazines, including Galaxy, Infinity, and Astounding Science Fiction, as well as many novels by the likes of Philip K. Dick, Leigh Brackett, and Samuel R. Delany. Apparently, some months his art counted for a third of all those included in the pulpy science fiction publications.
Not just a colorful renderer of menacing brain-controlling alien monsters, secret agent spacemen exploring the cosmos, and chic, futuristic goddesses from other dimensions–his works spanned abstract expressionist painting, commercial illustration, avant-garde film, video and computer art, and collaborations with dancers, choreographers, and composers.
You can see find an extensive listing of his covers at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database, which is the resource I used to match the images I found below, to their respective book titles or or magazines.
Fantastic Story Magazine, May 1953
cover art for World Without Men by Charles Eric Maine (1958)
Galaxy Science Fiction January 1955
Fantastic Universe, January 1960
cover art for The Memory Bank by Wallace West (1961)
Infinity Science Fiction, March 1958
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1957
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, March 1963
cover art for The Valley of the Flame by Harry Kuttner (1964)
cover art for The End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov (1963)
cover art for The Rogue Queen by L. Sprague de Camp (1952)
Steeped in surrealism, brimming with wide-eyed and wondrous dream imagery, and dripping with a sort of dazzling, bejeweled magical realism, Gervasio Gallardo (b. 1934) painted an enormous amount of the exquisite imagery that graced the classic Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series from the late 1960s-early 1970s. As well as having been the illustrator of a number of magazines and fiction authors, such as Peter S. Beagle, H. P. Lovecraft, F. Marion Crawford, Lord Dunsany, Clark Ashton Smith, William Morris, Hannes Bok, and Lin Carter.
I could have sworn that I had a battered, well-loved copy of The Last Unicorn with the swoony cover art above, but alas–it is lost! I did, however, find that I had two other titles with Gervasio Gallardo’s creations gracing the covers!
Below that, you will find some of my favorite works from the artist–I don’t yet know if any or all of them are connected to any book covers, but I’m working on figuring that out and will update this blog post with more information as I find it.
