I saw it in a dream

                                       'Scribbly boring'   silk cut lino print      © M.Burton

I have just completed the sequel to 'Self portrait with beetle,' an image I have struggled with for weeks. I have been very taken with the patterns of the 'scribbly borers' in some of the fallen trees around my house. 'Boring' and 'drawing' have become a kind of rhyming slang to me. I wasn't sure what to do but luckily my subconscious took over and I literally saw the the design in a dream. So fitting, as this week also marks the posting of Jeannette Davison's lovely article about all that emerges from my cocoon of a studio. ISIIAD (I saw it in a dream) is an art and design blog, and her recent post is HERE.

Epileptic: David B

The English version of David B's graphic novel 'Epileptic' (originally published in French as 'L'Ascension du haut mal') emerged in 2005, and although it has taken me 6 years to finally read this extraordinary work, the timing is perfect. It is a synthesis of everything I have been investigating in printmaking, autobiographical comics and the human condition, making it the most resonant read I have had in a while.

The author's world is a vivid, confronting and personal account of his childhood growing up with an epileptic brother, and I have never felt more inside a narrator's universe. Panels are layered with different levels of consciousness, with the illustrations departing from the text to describe both the surreal and everyday dimensions of the story utterly seamlessly.

A beautiful and haunting graphic novel.

                                                  
                                                   A panel from David B's 'Epileptic'

Teasleeves

 

                                           'Teasleeves' silk cut lino print © M. Burton