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The Alchemical Marriage
CD digipak image for The Red King: "VITRIOLUM"
1999
8 in. x 7.5 in.
Acrylic on paper |
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Madeline von Foerster majored in Illustration
at the California College of Arts, but left the Bay Area to
live in New York.
She is inspired by the Northern European Rennaissance artists:
Jan van Eyck, Memling, Rogier van der Weyden, Bosh, Brueghel,
Durer, and Gerard David, and also by the women Surrealists.
Sympathetic to the thinking of Carl Jung, her own life, dreams,
and obsessions are the source of her ideas, though her technique
is obviously borrowed from the past.
Some parallel might be drawn with Otto Dix, who also imitated
the Old Masters to portray his nightmarish take on the Twentieth
Century. Madeline’s focus, however, is allegorical rather
than Dix's often sordid realism.
Her works are executed as paintings but the intention to
deploy them as illustrations naturally imposes its own particular
requirements - such as eventual viewing size - inevitably
influencing the painting process and accounting for the micro-accuracy
and rich level of detail.
Her paintings - such as the Mirabilis cover - sometimes
appear entirely Mediaeval or Renaissance. At other times -
such as in the two portraits - they seem better described
as neo-mediaeval treatments of subjects that remain inherently
modern.
Madeline may already be familiar to readers from her CD cover
illustration, including the superb allegorical painting for
Unto Ashes' Saturn Return.
Readers are urged to visit Madeline's own very attractively
designed website where you will discover more pictures and
other items of interest.
Rik - 23 February 2003
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