Monsters and Dust

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The paintings from Shadow Lovers are abstracted from Werner Herzog’s 1979 release Nosferatu: The Vampyre, starring a deeply enigmatic Klaus Kinski and Isabella Adjani as the ravishing and strange Lucy Harker. I empathize with Klaus Kinski’s character in my narrative. He loves Lucy and wants nothing more than to be with her but he cannot fight his own nature for very long. Ultimately he can only destroy her.

My paintings for Shadow Lovers are oil on panels. I chose a limited palette to mimic the film stock Herzog used and to heighten the emotional impact in the paintings. As I continued painting, the black areas became more abstract and enveloping. By the time I was making the final pieces I wanted the black space to literally devour the figures.