2024
I have been meaning for several months (maybe almost a year now? Le whoopsie!) to continue my “spotlight” series on the incredible contemporary artists that have allowed me to include their gorgeous creations in my books.
Today celebrates a return to that practice and delivering on that promise to myself with a further look the languid dreams and unsettling poetry of Jason Mowry’s artworks. Jason’s splendid watercolor and gouache canvas, “The Sphinx, the Substance and the Dreamer,” can be seen in The Art of Fantasy: A Visual Sourcebook Of All That Is Unreal.
Expressed in the languid dream of a somber, sumptuous palette and resplendent with atmosphere and emotion, the work of Jason Mowry trembles in a thrillingly familiar way, caught between the border of formal and fantastic. We may not know who these subjects are or what they’re up to, but from the monstrous figures to the human characters that look just like us, there is something in their story that we recognize nonetheless.
These strange, sentimental visions combine myth and legend, personal narrative and symbolic imagery in a visual language that speaks a timeless spell. Mowry’s artistic alchemy bypasses the modern viewer’s analytical safeguards and sings to something ancient and ancestral in the blood. It’s a captivating push-pull quiver between violence and stillness, simplicity and opulence, the familiar and the fantastical.
Jason Mowry’s artistic vision draws from a rich tapestry of influences from the Golden Age of fairy tale illustration and its giants like Rackham and Dulac to the dark beauty and natural poetry of Grimms’ Fairy Tales, simmering with primal truths that speak to our fears and desires.
We can feel the shape of this interplay between the fantastical worlds and unsettling narratives in the light and shadows of Mowry’s paintings, and though we may not grasp the entire plot, the emotional undercurrents resonate deeply.
Raised between the hushed halls of art museums and the vibrant chaos of comic book shops, Mowry’s artistic heritage is a fascinating paradox, embuing the figures he coaxes onto the canvas a captivating duality. They flirt with a formality that reveals classical training, yet their surreal, elongated forms and expressive poses hint at a wildness and wonder born from years spent devouring comic panels.
This tension fuels Mowry’s storytelling. Each piece feels like a glimpse into a larger narrative, a dream told by a dreamer still in the midst of a dream; fraught and frozen, a moment of drama and crisis preserved in amber for one hundred years; each an oracular murmur of impending psychic annihilation–or a trilling song of complete rebirth.
We are left to wonder, are these figures facing oblivion, or a magnificent metamorphosis? And in connecting to that deep wellspring of grace and thrumming vulnerability within ourselves, what, then, are we capable of?
If you enjoy these artsy-fartsy musings, or if you have ever enjoyed or been inspired by something I have written, and you would like to support this blog, consider buying the author a coffee?
