VISUM ET REPERTUM

This month's featured artist:

JOHN JUDE PALENCAR

The influence of Hieronymous Bosch is evident in this painting portaying the "Panic of a New Millenium."

The art of John Jude Palencar is posessed of a singular power. Through suggestion rather than overt depiction, he works with oils and acrylics to portray a graceful horror which is at once elegant and subtle, requiring a second and even a third look in an attempt by the mind's eye to comprehend and catalog that which he shows us. Trained at the Columbus College of Art and Design as well as at the Illustrator's Workshop in Paris, he worked in greeting card illustration (!!!) before striking out on his own. There is an unearthly, surrealistic mood to Palencar's work, and it is no accident that he has been chosen to illustrate covers for many Sci-Fi, fantasy, and horror novels (several of which are depicted below). His work has appeared in Heavy Metal, Playboy, and other magazines, and several of his works are in private collections including The Phildadelphia Museum of Art and the Columbus Museum of Art. John Jude Palencar was awarded the 1999 Chesley Award from the Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists for best paperback novel cover. The following commentary is his own.

BIRD SHRINE

I like to render a horrific image in a very delicate way. The contradictory approach is very interesting to me as an artist. I'm kind of caught between worlds, between horror and fine art. I love doing anything that has a surrealist edge. I want to do timeless stuff, work that will hold up years from now, that can stand on its own as fine art. I enjoy taking the 'Hitchcock' approach; you know that there's something on the other side of the door that's after you, but you don't know what it is.

CTHULU MYTHOS (DETAIL)

COVER ILLUSTRATION FOR "TALES OF THE CTHULU MYTHOS" BY H. P. LOVECRAFT

Many times I've hidden things in my paintings, consciously or subconsciously, the way Lovecraft layers his realities and his perceptions of reality. His placement in style and time relates him to Poe and Hawthorne in the past, and King and Barker today. He unearths a timeless fear instinctual in all humans. There is so much imagery in his work--ancient civilizations, surprising variety and structure of creatures, dimensional travel, subconscious dream states. These are the elements that inspired me to paint the surrealistic landscape that H.P. Lovecraft created in words.

BLOOD DEBT

COVER ILLUSTRATION FOR THE NOVEL BY TANYA HUFF

I don't think of myself as a genre artist, although I do paint fantasy and science fiction, among other things. Being labeled as an "illustrator" can be limiting. I want to do more. The contradictory approach is very interesting to me as an artist. For one cover I had in mind the delicacy and horror of Goya's "Saturn Devouring his Children" and for another, Michelangelo's depiction of sybils in the Sistine Chapel.

THE DREAM CYCLE OF H.P. LOVECRAFT (DETAIL)

COVER ILLUSTRATION FOR THE COLLECTION "THE DREAM CYCLE OF H.P. LOVECRAFT"

I get a lot of inspiration from the old masters, and I'm kind of jealous of them. They were the first. Da Vinci was the first to cut a skull apart. It's frustrating that, visually, everything has really already been done. Contemporary artists are forced to invent visual dialects now. i've always been tonally driven. If I'd used more color, I'd want to change my technique to be more impressionistic. And there's actually more color in my work than meets the eye. I like to pare the image down to a figure and a landscape. I want something to stand apart, become an icon. I want something in there to be a little bit askew, an anomaly. It spurs me on as I paint and makes things happen. It's a catalyst for me. And maybe for the viewer as well.

PREVIOUS ARTISTS:

WIlliam Adolphe Bourguereau

H. R. Giger

Catherine McIntyre

Olivia DeBerardinis

Gustav Dore'

Joseph D. Greenwood

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