Unholy alliance
Leonora Carrington in her studio
A new project and collaboration with friend and artist Mandy Tolley took us to Blackburn Museum & Art Gallery yesterday to check out their small but perfectly formed collection of Orthodox Christian icons. As part of a forthcoming show which asks contributors to re-imagine the cover and reverse art of a favourite or influential book, we’ve chosen The Hearing Trumpet by surrealist artist and a favourite of mine, Leonora Carrington.
Leonora Carrington: Self Portrait, 1937
A character within this novella will be the focus of our efforts as we in turn look to creating a cover portrait of the deliciously titled Dona Rosalinda Alvarex Cruz della Cueva; at face value a pious and dedicated Abbess of the Covent of Santa Barbara of Tartarus, actually a scheming sorceress whose power can be traced to vials of ‘Musc de Madelaine’, a magical ointment that may or may not be responsible for the miracles performed by Jesus of Nazareth.
Early thoughts involve combining not only religious art but also, as our approach will be using computerized embroidery and hand-beading, the folk style of Russian ‘Matryoshka’ or nesting dolls; the painted dark-hued allure of Spanish flamenco souvenir ladies, fetish neck braces, cubist landscapes and the seemingly demure practice of needlepoint, scrapbooking and patchwork methods.