Painting as history lesson. Painting as carnival side show. Painting as psycho therapy. Painting as horror movie.
Joe Coleman is one of my favorite artists. His hyper detailed apocalyptic paintings just keep giving and giving (although you might not like what you get). I saw an exhibit of his work recently, and noticed his wife was there, carefully studying the art in the show as if it was the first time she'd seen it. And considering the dense complexity of the work, it is no wonder there are still so many things for even someone who lives with the painter to keep finding.
This book is super deluxe. The presentation of the art is flawless, but the real prize is the key to all the paintings at the back of the book, which footnotes all the overflowing details in these portraits of freaks and misfits and killers.
Not a book that you can absorb in a few sittings, Joe Colman shows us and tells us about his style of living as a painter of the apocalypse, if such a thing exists. The art is gruesome, vivid, painfully honest, and famously detailed with a single horse hair brush. My over sized book has illustrations that invite you to pour over them with a magnifying glass. Please only do this if you have a strong stomach and a high tolerance for intense imagery of violence, death and evil. I myself can't look at many of his paintings for more than a brief second.
Yeah...another art book. However this book portrays one of the most unique painters of all time. This book is simply amazing, and you'll have to see it for your self. There is plenty to read in Coleman's countless biographical works of the worlds oddest characters...I spent hours combing the pages with a magnifying glass.