Hell Bound: New Gothic Art

by Francesca Gavin

The first book to focus on new gothic art, Hell Bound highlights a new generation of contemporary artists who are increasingly obsessed with the darker things in life. Illustrators, street artists, sculptors, photographers, filmmakers, installation artists, and painters are all reflecting this renewed interest in gothic imagery.

Horror has become a more accepted part of everyday lifeand art, as always, is a reflection of life. Here death metal, the war on terror and throwaway pop culture meet, feeding the popular fascination for all things gothic.

Among the art featured is the iconoclastic work of Ken Kagami, Terence Koh, Ricky Swallow, the photographic collages of Marnie Weber, the drawings of Chloe Piene and Wes Lang, the paintings of Matt Greene and Iris Van Dongen, the outsider punk art of Pure Evil, and the illustrations of French.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Gothic

176 pages, Paperback

First published October 29, 2008

Reviews

[Karel-Willem Delrue · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection of contemporary art drawn to the dark side provides well-written background information on the artists and on their views on all things horror. Gavin varies between her own analyses and quotes by the artists themselves, permitting a deeper insight in the creation of those overwhelming works of art.
Hell Bound presents itself as “the first book to focus on new gothic art”, claiming its own unprecedented vision. In a book declaring such a daring statement, I missed a clear definition of what new gothic art is (”It looks like everything that refers a bit to darkness or death is called “gothic”, says Iris Van Dongen in this book) and an underpinned argumentation of the selection of artists in this pioneering work.
On the plus side, my copy contains an extra hellish chapter which makes Hell Bound a timeless inspiration and it contains an unforgettable demonic interpretation of drum kits.
Drum kits are magical demons, every single one of them – because they create repercussions that can open shifts in time. When you hit a drumstick to the surface, time bounces. It’s not about going into the past or present or future. It’s about time focusing into a point of space. When we play them, we as humans can, for a while, experience time as space. This is about being demonic; it’s not some satanic evil thing. Being demonic means you perceive both space and time – and drum kits are portals into that. -Terence Koh

[Morpho · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great art book, though something I found silly is that there must have been a bad manufacturer of these because the glue that holds the cover on the pages dried and cracked off before I even bought the book(I'm not afraid of a broken book if the contents are worth it), then many years later I found another owner and they also had the cover completely separate from the pages. The art is still gorgeous and I flip through it all the time, I just found that unique problem goofy that someone else experienced it too.

[Francine · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wish these works were printed on glossy paper, because the paper they used here makes everything look so dull.

A lot of the selected works would look really cool in a 3D space. I wish I could see the installations in real life, so I could view them from different angles. These photos only show one angle and it makes me feel like I'm missing out on the emotion the art is supposed to evoke.

Sadly, I didn't find a new favourite artist amongst these pages.