1913issue6online

77 movie. These films are also quite sad. They tell short stories about love, heartbreak and loss. They are wistful, nostalgic, and sometimes, a little bit cruel. Parallel to these slideshow works are a group of black and white drawings that have been evolving for the last few months. They are done in India ink and graphite, and they range in size from 3 x 4 inches to 15 x 20 inches. They are images of women’s lingerie and boudoir accoutrements, which appear atrophied, or ghostly. They hover over patterns of striated circles, which resemble fingerprints, or tree rings. These feminine items of erotic engagement could’ve been taken from any silent-screen era actress’s chiffonier, like Theda Bara, Lily Damita, Brigitte Helm, or Nita Naldi. They also could’ve been lifted from the imagination of John Willie, publisher of Bizarre magazine, a fetish periodical of the 1940s – 1950s, which has had a marvelous influence on me. Very much like my slideshows, I filter these drawings through the fey, antiquated aesthetics of various popular—and not so popular—cultural modes of the early twentieth century in order to reveal some small fragments about our modern world, and a bit about myself. -Alex Jovanovich

1913issue6online

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