31 Days of Horror--Day 19 Nicoletta Ceccoli's Dark Fairy Tales
Campagno Di Giochi
As part of my whirlwind tour of my favorite Pop Surrealists, I cannot go without highlighting the darkly whimsical Nicoletta Ceccoli. Ceccoli's website is a wonderful place to explore, but one can purchase some of her more arresting illustrations by taking a quick trip to Amazon (better yet, find a book on their site and then hunt it down at your nearest Indie bookstore).
Ceccoli does not shy away from the more sexual nature of fairytales:
Toyland
Prova A Pendermi
Contrary Mary
You can see a bit of a theme here...
I also like the way in which she sometimes transforms her female characters' bodies, but not in a way that they seem to find remotely alarming. As I said in a previous post, if Black Swan would have been more about her "magical" transformation into a swan rather than the character's lame struggles to become sexualized, then the film would have been much more interesting. Ceccoli's vision of bodily transformation is unsettling, but not really monstrous.
Birdcage
Charlotte
Beastina
Crows
Katherine
Sheryl
Some of my favorite Ceccoli images are what I like to call "Candyland Nightmares." Did you play this game when you were a kid? I realize I'm about to bash some sacred cow, but really, this game is for very small kids and/or utter nitwits. Seriously, it borders on being for an age group that would rather eat the tokens than play with them (chutes and ladders at least had some vague challenge). Still if someone made a movie of this board game, it could be seriously disturbing and twisted, kind of like Jan Svankmajer'sAlice (1988). Willy Wonka's candyland is just not dark and scary enough for me (bashing another sacred cow). I think Ceccoli should be involved in my non-existent film's production design.
Dolceamara
Lollipopland and a detail from it
Candy Forest
Poster for Curioser + Curioser show in NYC this November
Ceccoli also has a remarkable sense of perspective and a flare for the uncanny. Like Mark Ryden, she tends to illustrate what might be going on, in the dark, once the world closes its eyes. A darker version of Toy Story, which reminds me of Ladislaw Starewicz's marvelous The Mascot.
In Ceccoli's toy universe, even the most benign objects can appear threatening. The uncanniness of these images is mostly due to her unsettling sense of scale.
The Elephant's Journey
The Magician's Assistant
Battle of Wits
Evidently Goldfish
And finally, she does create images that are straight out horrific. Beautiful, but undeniably terrifying.
