The Serpent in the Carnations(Snake Oil-soaked carnation petals, spiked with a dash of clove and allspice.) Wait, haven’t I smelled this before? Flipping through last year’s reviews, I discover I’ve already waxed poetic about this scent. And yet here I am, astonished all over again, falling into the same serpentine trap. The enchantment is complete; I’ve forgotten I was already enchanted. This is the second time I’ve declared this my favorite from a collection, which tells you everything you need to know about its power. I stand by every word of my previous devotion – the art nouveau femme fatale, the mortuary spice of carnations, Snake Oil’s heavily sugared incense creating that wicked bohemian ghoulishness. The layers of decadence unfold like those Symbolist paintings themselves. The very pigments ground from these carnation petals and serpent scales, mixed with poisonous metals and the tears of corrupted saints. This fragrance emanates from Salome’s skin as she dances, each veil she drops releasing another layer of this scent into the room, until even the most virtuous observer feels their resolve melting away. It lingers on Klimt’s Judith as she approaches Holofernes, infusing her with terrible purpose and unwavering conviction.This is decadence crystallized into a new element on the periodic table – one that devours light, creates shadows where there should be none, and causes flowers to bloom backwards into the earth. I want to bathe in it not once but daily, create a religion around it, convert followers through scented whispers. The Serpent in the Carnations isn’t just corrupted by forbidden knowledge – it’s the reason knowledge became forbidden in the first place.
The Fourth Veil (ripples of sage-green silk covered in a mossy velvet-burnout pattern of wildflowers and slithering ivy) conjures a very specific, very private sanctuary of nostalgia for me. When I was very young, there was a moon-shaped waxen knick-knack… I think it was meant to be a room freshener of some sort, but it hung from a cord, and my mother was using it as a curtain pull. I used to hide behind the dusty, pleated fabric and drag my nails over it, scoring the smooth surface, collecting the sweet, powdery floral wax on my fingertips, which I would then run through my hair so that I could smell it all day. This scent echoes that pleasant waxiness and builds on it with something that smells like a wildflower and algae shampoo, sweet and brackish and slightly herbal, and a note that channels the olfactory version of arsenical wallpaper, verdant trompe-l’œil tendrils climbing over a musky base of translucent, chalky minerals that seem to trap light and transform it into something vaguely bioluminescent.
Pink Fuzzy Handcuffs (pink cotton candy, candied rose, and vanilla sugar) transforms what could be a cloying rose soliflore into something unexpectedly compelling – like stumbling across a street vendor in some fantastical night market who specializes in tanghulu made not from strawberries or cherries but from enormous, dewy rose petals. Each crystallized bloom catches the neon lights, creating jewel-toned fragments that shatter between your teeth with a satisfying crack. The sugar shell is a hyper-concentrated, almost electric pink that buzzes on your tongue and makes your fillings ache in a kaleidoscopic way. This is a gleeful, rosy, sugar-spun audacity.
The Pearl (a salt-encrusted cocoon overflowing with almond blossoms, sweet patchouli, and dried peony petals whipped into orris butter) opens with an unexpected fruity-tarty-sweetness, as if someone had sliced a perfectly ripe persimmon atop a bed of dried apricots. This initial surprise fades as the scent settles into something truer to its nature. It becomes the olfactory embodiment of iridescence – if the pearlescent interior of an abalone shell could release its shimmer as fragrance. There’s something mineral and organic happening simultaneously here, like salt crystals forming on driftwood at low tide. From there, the scent unfolds in luminous ripples, revealing the strange not-quite-colors that exist inside shells – those blues that aren’t blue, the pinks that aren’t quite pink, the greens that seem to flicker in and out of existence depending on how the light hits. It smells exactly how that color-shifting, mysterious inner world of abalone looks – ethereal, ancient, and somehow both oceanic and otherworldly at once.
Horreur Choco-Tique (dark chocolate, ruby cocoa, blood musk, golden honey, thick black wine, champagne grapes, tobacco flower, plum blossom, tonka bean, oakmoss, carnation, benzoin, opoponax, and sugar cane) Imagine licking a chocolate lollipop only to discover an impossibly tiny stained glass cathedral trapped inside it. Press your eye against the glossy cocoa surface and see microscopic nuns bathed in divine grape juice light, aubergine and amaranthine rays streaming through intricate amethyst-hued filigree whorls and whirls of the vitreous panes. Each lick dissolves another layer of bitter chocolate veneer, revealing more of this sugared sanctuary within. The chambers grow increasingly purple-stained as you reach the center, where fermented grape sweetness meets cocoa dust in an unlikely communion. Somewhere in the sticky core, a miniature priest made entirely of dark chocolate lifts a tiny candy chalice of Concord concentrate to lips that will never taste it, forever frozen in a moment of grape-stained reverence.
Plume of Incense (tendrils of sandalwood, agarwood, and cypress incense, moss silk, calla lilies, and yellow amber) Cypress leaps out first – almost tactile in its intensity, a lemony-green sharpness that feels like running your hand along a prickly branch. Then the scent shifts and settles, becoming a soft, languid incense drifting through empty rooms. It transforms into an indolent sphinx of a fragrance, stretched across sun-warmed stone, with delicate wisps of aromatic smoke curling from its enigmatic smile. The agarwood and sandalwood form the creature’s body, substantial yet somehow also ethereal, while the yellow amber creates its half-lidded eyes that watch with ancient, unhurried patience. This incense has all the time in the world to gradually enchant you into reverence, each tendril of smoke winding around your senses with the languorous confidence of something that knows eternity is on its side.
Mars and Venus (a stolen moment preserved for eternity in a gleaming amber jewel, entombed in malachite swirls of oakmoss and velvet) Forget enemies to lovers, this scent captures lovers to landscapes, passion transformed into geological wonder. A clean, crisp amber polished smooth by ocean tides holds the memory of ancient heat at its core. The fragrance shifts into mossy-musky dampness, like vegetation slowly reclaiming abandoned statues in a forgotten garden. When warmed against skin, it exhales a humid velvet aura, luxurious yet wild, as if cosmic bodies once pressed together have now cooled into mineral formations still somehow radiating their original warmth. Time has crystallized divine indiscretion into something that will outlast even the gods themselves, leaving only this aromatic evidence behind: a perfumed fossil of desire.
Discarded Weapons (toasted rice, almond cream, champaca resin, fig, and roasted coconut meat) The camera pans across perfectly toasted rice grains, each one glistening with a hint of savory oil. A steady hand sprinkles roasted nuts, arranging them in a mesmerizing pattern that took fourteen takes to perfect. The creator’s chopsticks move to the dessert compartment, revealing jammy Fig Bar Cookies topped with large flakes of sea salt that catch the light like tiny crystals and coconut shavings, their edges curled and caramelized from slow caramelization. A sweetness remains restrained, a mellow complexity. Our lunchbox artisan steps back, still filming, and watches the comments section explode with hearts and flame emojis. This fragrance hits that sweet spot between culinary art and comfort food – savory, sweet, and somehow both elaborate and profoundly satisfying at once.
Snake Skin (a sinuous leather variant of BPAL’s Snake Oil) Charting the void with phantom maps, new territories over familiar terrain. Leather emerges first, strangely mentholated and cool, running your hand against the grain of scales. Snake Oil’s incense weaves through the leather landscape, a compass that points to itself, creating landmarks that shift each time you attempt to find them. An unexpected almond whisper hides in the coils, sweet and slightly bitter, the pit left behind after devouring whole the fruit that was forbidden. Engulfing its own origin, repeatedly shedding and reforming as it warms on skin, leaving behind the undertow of the past while somehow still carrying it forward- the same beast viewed through different dimensions, simultaneously ancient and newborn, forever caught in the moment of transformation.
Need more Lupercalia scents? Have a peep at my Lupers reviews from 2024 and 2023 and 2022 and 2021 and 2020. Looks like I skipped a few years but we’ve also got 2017 and 2016 reviews as well!
…PSSSST! Did you know I have collected all of my BPAL reviews into one spot? I’m about a year behind with adding new stuff to the document, but as it stands, there are over 60 PAGES of my thoughts and rambles on various limited-edition scents from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab over the years: BPAL REVIEWS BY S. ELIZABETH (PDF download)
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cover art by Rudy Nappi for The Secret of the Old Clock
Long before I lost my heart to ladies in billowing nightgowns fleeing from ominous manors, I fell head over heels for a teenaged titian-haired sleuth with a penchant for stumbling upon—and solving—mysteries full of hidden jewels and midnight whispers. Nancy Drew, with her blue roadster and ever-present flashlight, was my first literary love. And it was Rudy Nappi’s captivating cover illustrations that first beckoned me into her world of hidden clues and intrepid adventures.
I can still remember tucking those yellow-spined books into my bookbag after library day (the most anticipated school day, obviously!), counting the moments until I could unfold their mysteries on the bus ride home. Nappi began illustrating Nancy Drew in 1953, bringing a distinctive magic to the series. His Nancy always seems caught in that perfect moment of suspense—peering around corners, examining cryptic objects, or caught in mid-investigation.
cover art by Rudy Nappi for Mystery of the Moss-Covered Mansion
Looking at Nappi’s work now, I love how he captured Nancy. She’s smart and composed, her face alert and searching, but never scared. Even when she’s facing shadowy strangers or weird phenomena, she has a confident calmness that fascinated me as a kid who was afraid of everything from motorcycles and helicopters and other loud noises to Lou Ferrigno as The Incredible Hulk to Dr. Kneehaus, who I suspected was always itching to jab me with a needle. But Nancy never ran from noises in the attic or anywhere else—she walks straight toward them, flashlight in hand.
cover art by Rudy Nappi for Mystery of The Mystery at Lilac Inn
I always loved his color choices—those deep blues, rich greens, and warm glowing windows against dark backgrounds. His moonlit scenes where Nancy’s investigating abandoned places, her figure bright against the darkness, pulled me right into the story before I’d read a single word. The Lilac Inn cover was always my favorite. I had a particular fondness for anything adorned with flowers, a preference that hasn’t changed much over the decades.
And the covers with jewels or gems held a special enchantment for me. The Clue in the Jewel Box? The Spider Sapphire Mystery? I was instantly captivated. My childhood attraction to glittering treasures clearly foreshadowed my adult appreciation for all things that shimmer and sparkle.
cover art by Rudy Nappi for The Spider Sapphire Mystery
cover art by Rudy Nappi for Mystery of the Brass-Bound Trunk
Nappi had a theatrical flair to his compositions. Nancy often stands in doorways, on staircases, or at garden gates—right at that exciting moment between safety and mystery. Her practical skirts and sensible shoes (I desperately wanted those penny loafers) kept things grounded, even when the stories ventured into the wonderfully far-fetched. Nappi really knew how to use light and shadow, drawing your eye exactly where he wanted—usually to Nancy or the clue she’s finding. His buildings, whether crumbling mansions or abandoned lighthouses, feel both specific and somehow timeless.
I see so many connections between these Nancy Drew covers and the gothic romance art I collected later. Many of the same artistic techniques appear in both: dramatic lighting that creates suspense, architectural elements that frame the protagonist, and compositions that guide the eye to critical details. Both genres showcase women in atmospheric settings – old mansions, shadowy gardens, moonlit landscapes. Both capture moments of tension and revelation. Nancy’s poised alertness with flashlight in hand represents one approach to mystery, while the emotional intensity of gothic heroines embodies another. Rather than opposites, they feel like different facets of the same attraction to the unknown. As my reading tastes evolved, I found myself drawn to both visual languages – the clear-eyed investigation and the emotional response to mystery, each compelling in its own way.
cover art by Rudy Nappi for The Crooked Bannister
Nappi had an extraordinary ability to conjure an aura of mystery in every illustration. Even covers for stories I initially thought wouldn’t interest me drew me in through his visual alchemy. What captivated me wasn’t simply his skill at depicting scenes from the books, but how he manifested the very essence of mystery—that delicious sensation of secrets waiting to be uncovered, of ordinary objects and places harboring extraordinary significance. These covers sparked my lifelong love affair with mysteries and the mysterious, teaching me to see the world as a place where wonder hides in plain sight, waiting for the observant eye to discover it.
I’d spend hours with these books, mentally placing myself alongside Nancy as she solved each mystery. (Poor Bess and George—in my imagination, they frequently found themselves bumped to make room for me.) The covers themselves became doorways to adventure, promising stories that would satisfy my growing appetite for mystery and revelation.
cover art by Rudy Nappi for The Secret in the Old Attic
There’s something comforting about Nancy’s world in these illustrations. The danger feels real enough to be exciting but never truly terrifying. The mysteries seem complex but always within reach of solving. Nancy herself has this perfect mix of caution and bravery that spoke to my curious but fearful younger self. These covers promised that smart thinking would always win out—and I was here for it.
cover art by Rudy Nappi for The Secret of Mirror Bay
Looking back, I can trace the genealogy of my aesthetic obsessions directly to these Nancy Drew covers. The seeds planted by Nappi’s illustrations eventually blossomed into my fascination with gothic romance art. The visual vocabulary he established—secrets lurking in shadowed doorways, mysterious objects holding untold stories, architecture as a character in itself—became the foundation for my later artistic attractions.
I see a clear connection between Nancy and the gothic heroines I’d later fall in love with, one that goes deeper than their surface differences. Both have a special way of noticing what others miss, even if Nancy expresses it through methodical sleuthing while gothic heroines often rely on intuition and emotional awareness. The visuals evolve beautifully between genres too – Nancy’s trusty flashlight beam sweeping across dusty attics becomes the gothic heroine’s flickering candle casting shadows on stone walls. What draws me to both is how they remind us that truly seeing the world around you – paying attention to details others ignore – reveals life’s hidden stories. As a child, I found this lesson in Nancy’s careful observations; as an adult, I discovered it again in the atmospheric worlds of gothic covers, where I realized that perhaps mystery itself isn’t just something to solve, but something to savor – a state of heightened possibility that awakens our most vivid imagination.
cover art by Rudy Nappi for The Mystery of the Glowing Eye
These books, which I first found in my elementary school library in second grade, didn’t just entertain me—they shaped how I see the world. Just look at the titles: moss-covered mansions, crumbling walls, whispering statues, tolling bells, broken lockets, twisted candles, crooked bannisters, spider sapphires, glowing eyes. This is the vocabulary that still colors my imagination—a gothic kaleidoscope I’ve never outgrown.
I see a clear connection between Nancy and the gothic heroines I’d later fall in love with, one that goes deeper than their surface differences. Both have a special way of noticing what others miss, even if Nancy expresses it through methodical sleuthing while gothic heroines often rely on intuition and emotional awareness. The visuals evolve beautifully between genres too – Nancy’s trusty flashlight beam sweeping across dusty attics becomes the gothic heroine’s flickering candle casting shadows on stone walls. What draws me to both is how they remind us that truly seeing the world around you – paying attention to details others ignore – reveals life’s hidden stories. As a child, I found this lesson in Nancy’s careful observations; as an adult, I discovered it again in gothic illustrations, where I began to appreciate what might be called the art of the unknown – that exquisite space between question and answer where possibilities shimmer like jewels in candlelight, sometimes more precious than certainty itself.
cover art by Rudy Nappi for The Whispering Statue
cover art by Rudy Nappi for The Clue In The Jewel Box
cover art by Rudy Nappi for The Clue of the Velvet Mask
cover art by Rudy Nappi for The Scarlet Slipper Mystery
cover art by Rudy Nappi for The Hidden Window Mystery
cover art by Rudy Nappi for The Witch Tree Symbol
cover art by Rudy Nappi for The Ghost of Blackwood Hall
cover art by Rudy Nappi for The Secret of the Wooden Lady
cover art by Rudy Nappi for The Clue in the Crumbling Wall
cover art by Rudy Nappi for The Mystery of the Tolling Bell
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What if the deep-ones’ hybrid offspring wore couture? What if the transformation from human to something else were not just biological but sartorial?
In a foggy maritime underworld of jagged rocks and ambient sounds of crashing waves, models crawled, slithered, and contorted themselves forward in the Elena Velez Fall 2025 Ready to Wear collection (“Leech.”) Opening the show was Anna Delvey—ankle monitor and all—a bizarre yet somehow fitting choice for a collection that seems to revel in subverting expectations. I don’t know why I am still laughing about that, but I am.
The collection feels like it was salvaged from some ancient shipwreck—tattered sails repurposed into flowing garments, rope elements that both bind and decorate, metal pieces catching what little light existed in the space. Some looks featured these seaweed-like textures that seemed to cling to the models like they’d just emerged from the deep.
The “maritime abyss” setting, complete with fog and rocky shores, could easily be the misty coastline where the Marsh family made their unholy pact. Even the three personas—especially “The Land Walker”—echo the uncanny transition states of Innsmouth’s inhabitants, neither fully human nor fully transformed. The collection seems to celebrate rather than fear this metamorphosis, though, reclaiming the power in becoming something other. The residents of the half-submerged coastal town have hiding their gills and webbed fingers and decided to make it fashion!
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I’m not over here trying to Statler and Waldorf my way through fashion week (look, I only tune into this stuff when it gets weird and fun, so I have no idea if we’re even in an official “fashion week” right now or what. There seem to be dozens of them? Whatever.) but can we take a moment to celebrate the brilliant absurdities that make runway shows so captivating?
As someone who genuinely loves fashion in all its forms, I find particular joy in those delightfully outrageous moments where designers push boundaries into the realm of the fantastical and farcical. These are the runway spectacles that make you whisper in awe, “what beautiful madness am I witnessing?” I’ve rounded up my recent Favorite fashion fever dreams not to critique but to revel in the glorious chaos that happens when designers throw caution, convention, and occasionally physics, and quite often good taste, straight out the window.
But also there are some things here that are genuinely lovely! There’s room for all of it, the pretty frocks and the sartorial lunacy, in the eternal wardrobe of my heart.
Junya Watanabe Fall Winter 2025 ready to wear
Alexander McQueen fall 2025 ready to wear
Vivienne Westwood Fall Winter 2025
Rick Owens Fall 2025 Ready-to-Wear Collection
Ann Demeulemeester FW25
Marine Serre Fall Winter 2025
Zimmermann Fall Winter 2025
COMME des GARÇONS FW25
Yohji Yamamoto FW25
Moschino FW25
UNDERCOVER FW25
Noir Kei Ninomiya Fall 2025 Ready-to-Wear Collection
Hodakova Fall 2025 Ready-To-Wear Collection
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If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you know one of my original intentions was to share the things I truly love (in addition to sharing pictures of food!) I don’t always do that as often as I like anymore, so every once in a while, I need to take a break from trying to convince people I know the slightest thing about art or perfume or fashion, and instead just say, “Hey! Look at this thing! I like it!”
Because of that aforementioned doctor’s visit and the changes she wants me to make for my health, as well as trying to keep a better eye on spending, I have put a moratorium on clothing shopping for the time being. If my human meatsack is undergoing an evolution, I don’t need to buy any more garments for it as it continues to mutate. In the meantime, I’ve begun some projects that are pretty intensive and consuming, and I don’t have time to be thinking about clothes or what to wear anyway!
I need tried-and-true uniforms, so I’ve gathered up some favorites into a bit of a capsule wardrobe for easy stuff to wear that I don’t have to put one single thought into. They are comfortable and reliable, and they are 99% black because I am both a creature of habit and a creature of the night! Here they are, in no order, because they’re all equally good!
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Arcana Wildcraft Oxomoco is (to my nose, anyway!) the scent of Leonora Carrington’s shadowy, enigmatic “The Feast of Samhain” distilled into fragrance—a realm where darkness consumes light, where fathomless frankincense overwhelms a pale, luminous core with primal intensity. Smoke spirals and weaves through soft coconut milk, creating a landscape of raw, mystical contrasts: hand-captured frankincense emerges not as a delicate whisper but as a profound presence, its tendrils curling against the saline, creaminess like umbral fingers of smoke tracing a tenebrous shroud. Threaded throughout, cedar and amber drift like ghostly mediators—subtle conductors that amplify the tension between the scent’s disparate elements, lending depth to its complex intricacy The coconut milk lurks like a secret silver thread, barely visible beneath the deep, consuming woodiness—both elements distinct, stubborn, refusing to blend yet creating a complex, unresolvable presence, elemental and strange and unutterably glorious.
Heretic Parfum Coeur Noir The first breath of Coeur Noir defies its brooding presentation with an unexpected lightness – a cool pastel candied dust, compressed powder sweetness, like fruit wisps and sugared flower petals ground with chalk. This is anchored by a woody, resinous vanilla, but rather than cream or confection, it calls to mind a delicate, aromatic booklet of papiers d’Armenie. The lightness is deceptive, though. As it settles on skin, the sweetness begins its slow retreat, like an eclipse gradually dimming the sky. What emerges is more contemplative – a dusky, myrrh-like quality, that smoky-sour-shivery incense that suggests the shadows promised by that black heart-shaped box, a liminal space of perpetual twilight chill, never reaching full dark.
Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab Poppies and Lupine may not be intended as such, and I may be the only one who experiences it thusly, but it feels like a phantom companion to their long-discontinued but much beloved (by me, anyway) Danube. I know it’s a bit lazy to describe a fragrance in terms of another fragrance, but for context, here is what I wrote about Danube many many years ago:
Danube is a beloved scent that is, for me, more about memory than the actual fragrance itself. It is a deep blue aquatic scent – but not salty, ozone-y, beachy aquatic, nor is it murky, swampy aquatic. Like a cold swimming pool on a hot day (maybe if you were adding grapefruit to your pool instead of chlorine) with every blue flower imaginable floating on top of it. Imagine being 6 years old and holding your breath and submerging yourself in a swimming pool, then slo-o-o-wly sinking to the bottom. The water is chilled, you feel like the only person in the world and everything is totally silent. Imagine peering up and seeing the sun streaming down into the water, between all of the blue petals. It’s calm and soothing and serene and is an absolutely a must for hot, sticky weather and for people who haven’t got a swimming pool.
Where Danube carries you into that crystalline submersion, that childhood moment of perfect underwater suspension, Poppies and Lupine exists in the languid aftermath. This is what happens after you’ve surfaced, water droplets evaporating from sun-warmed skin, as you lie half-dozing by the pool’s edge while twilight seeps slowly into the world. The fragrance possesses a deeply narcotic quality that immediately brings to mind Milla Jovovich singing “In a Glade” – that haunting Ukrainian folk melody that seems to exist outside of time, vocals drifting through some ancestral dreamscape. I’ve found myself playing this song on repeat while wearing this scent, each enhancing the otherworldliness of the other, creating a feedback loop of beautiful melancholy.
Imagine moonblooms floating on still waters, their heavy heads nodding in the limpid, liminal space between wakefulness and dreaming, their reflection creating a hypnotic double-image that blurs the line between what’s real and what’s reverie. There’s something dozy-drowsy in its incense-laden whispers, the gentle floral sway of a midnight lullaby. The scent swathes with the unhurried cadence of half-remembered dreams, each note blurring softly into the next as consciousness unspools and drifts. I find myself returning to this scent not for brightness or clarity but for its gentle dissolution of boundaries – those moments when consciousness folds back upon itself and you become both observer and observed, dreamscape and dreamer simultaneously.
DSH Perfumes Emerald Hyrax There’s a softness here that feels almost geological—the kind of green that exists between moss and stone, in those damp crevices where nothing much happens except the quietest possible growth. The space where a fern’s tiniest root might tentatively unfurl, where moisture pools in the smallest shadow, where time seems to pause and collect itself. Like a small, fuzzy creature curling into an impossibly delicate nest of lichen and loam; like a monk’s pillow woven from the most tender moss, bathed in the hazy, frozen light of quartz; like an agate’s whispers of its time in the earth.
Liis Choux Choux There’s an Icelandic milk biscuit balanced between vanilla wafer and hard tack– it’s called Mjólkurkex, but don’t ask me to pronounce it. It’s got the subtle taste of a treat but the tooth-breaking texture of something shockingly punitive. Imagine someone tried to gussy it up with a sifting of icing sugar on top, a powdery dusting through the delicate whorls and swirls of a doily. But maybe that’s not enough, so they’ve added a few fragile curls of sweet cream butter, sculpted in the shape of spring flowers. But also, what if you maybe just wanted a proper dessert? They’ve served a small slice of the airiest, fluffiest whipped lemon chiffon cake, too. Exactly the sort of thing that would make a Scandinavian minimalist weep with complicated emotions.
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Antiquarian clocks that have ticked through the ages,
Dust-covered brooches and haunted earrings,
These are a few of my favorite things.
When the lights dim,
When the wind howls,
When I’m feeling sad,
I simply remember my favorite things,
And then I don’t feel so bad….!
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“Horror assaults our senses with relentless precision – the crescendo of a nerve-shredding score, the stomach-dropping revelation in a match-cut, the visceral impact of practical effects. Yet there’s one sensory dimension that remains frustratingly out of reach: the olfactory landscape of fear. We can see the expressionist shadows of Nosferatu, hear Tomie’s seductive whispers, feel the controlled violence vibrating beneath American Psycho’s polished surface – but we can only imagine their distinct bouquets of ancient evil, obsessive beauty, and expensive madness.”
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This article was originally published at Haute Macabre.
When initially living on my own in my early 20’s, I received a mysterious package in the mail during one of the first few weeks in my small apartment. In a plain brown envelope, with no return address and no accompanying note, I found a generic paperback mystery novel. Stuck between the pages between chapters three and four was a faded Polaroid of a man with a ridiculously large, dangling penis. His eyes were Xed out, and someone had drawn a slimy booger hanging from his nose. Ew. Gross. But also: unexpected and intriguing!
For weeks I scoured my brain, asking myself over and over who was this mysterious owner of the enormous wiggly peen? Am I supposed to know him? Who defaced his image? What was the significance of the book in which it was tucked? Why had someone mailed this to me in the first place? I had so many questions! The next month my sister telephoned me and asked if I’d gotten the gift she had sent.
Apparently, she shared, while laughing so hard she could barely breathe, she’d found the book at a used bookstore. When she plucked it from the shelf, the photo tumbled out, and in retrieving it from the floor and taking a closer look, she realized that, with a few modifications, she had the perfect anonymous house-warming gift to send me. She was right. It was weird and dumb and perfect, and to this day we giggle about it. We still don’t know who the naked man is, but we will no doubt be mocking him until we are well in our dotage.
What do Marcel Dzama‘s illustrations have in common with my ludicrous sister and the mysterious dick pic? Well, I’ll get to that.
Marcel Dzama’s works, reminiscent of small, intimate illustrations from vintage story books, are rendered in graphite, pen and ink, watercolor, and root beer wash (a solution he discovered by accident and which can make his drawings look as if they are made in blood). Equal parts macabre and mischievous, frightening and fanciful, these delicately wrought, hybrid characters in the midst of their bizarre and disturbing narratives, present a folksy appearance with an surrealist twist and are underscored by a dark, gallows humor.
Receiving his BFA from the University of Manitoba in 1997, Dzama actively creates across mediums, being a prolific drawer, as well as filmmaker, installation and sculpture artist, musician, costume designer. One might recognize his artwork from the creative output of musicians such as Beck or They Might Be Giants and his darkly whimsical works are highly sought after by Hollywood celebrities such as Brad Pitt and Jim Carey.
Do I care about any of that when my gaze falls upon his flacid, feeble aliens and pretentious tree people and the subversive violence committed by a parade of young women shooting arrows, strangling bats, and threatening their sistren with slingshots? Not particularly.
Dzama’s accolades and renown and star-studded endorsements have nothing to do with why I am drawn to strange pageantry of his work. Cartoonish, nightmarish, and utterly enigmatic, I trace the simple lines of his childish faces with my finger, lose myself in the cloudy shades of his muted color palette, and wonder endlessly about all of it. One reviewer of Marcel Dzama: Sower of Discord, writes that Dzama’s works are a “…a fun-house hell where sinners are condemned to an eternity of enigma.” It is this enigmatic quality to the work that compels me to continue staring, despite the unknowing. To seek out more of his wonderfully peculiar art. And of course…to share the mystery.
One might imagine finding a book of these illustrations in a cardboard box of disorganized children’s toys at your neighbor’s garage sale on a cloudy autumn day. Struck at first by the whimsy of these drawings, you will thumb through the pages, your nostalgia slowly turning to puzzlement. Something seems really off here. Just…not quite right. Kinda fucked up, actually–and you’d love a second opinion.
And you know what? It’s your turn to play anonymous benefactor and you’ve got just the sibling to send it to.
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