Gothic gone mainstream

NEW:  Click image to print & collect.

“Drawing and visual media were his pain-relievers of choice … a response to conditions of disconnection and isolation.”    (From book pictured).  If you’re in Melbourne visit Tim’s Exhibition or grab a copy of his book.   He’s the creator/director of  Batman (visit the Joker in this blog for more); The Corpse Bride;  Nighmare at Christmas; Alice in Wonderland (check out this previous blog post about bullies); and heaps more.   Be inspired … 

“In spite of claims that he was an inarticulate youth who felt alienated from his neighbourhood environment, Burton’s point of view has always been humorous and high spirited.  Burton made much of his disaffected youth as muse for his early work.

Burton has endeavoured to come up with new models for the beautiful.  Skeletons, severed heads, and bodies and eyes that are stitched and pierced are recurring emblems whose twofold effect is to skewer conformist attitudes and affirm alternative ways of life.   Disfiguring the body (not his, the characters!) allows Burton to deliver metaphors of social disfunction and psychological disintegration with sensual wit.

Burton’s predatory clowns and other disquieting, misunderstood creatures point to core themes of human duplicity and the opposing, fretting ages of man.  The scenes of encounter between adolescence and adulthood that he stages time and time again – via parent-child conversations and youthful challenges to authority – speak of his feelings about artistic  imagination and the limitations of circumstance.  In the end, creativity is the saving grace of Tim Burton’s heroes.  Their example of imaginative activity, as a response to conditions of disconnection and isolation, is the overarching message of Burton’s work.”   Pass it on ….

(Words taken from ‘Tim Burton The Exhibition’ book).