Christopher Madden

Symbolism

  • Surreal sea creature. Drawing from the imagination.

    contemporary art surreal dada bizarre sea creature

    A surreal sea creature drawn from the imagination.

    Digital image. 6th May 2023

    A bizarre sea creature created digitally in Procreate on an iPad. The shape of the sea creature is based on the number six, as the image was created as part of an exercise in which I sketched several images on my iPad based on the numbers between zero and nine. The concept behind the exercise was that by having to take into account the restraints of including a number in each image I would be forced to work with forms or shapes that I might not think up straight from my imagination.

    When creating the sketch I was attempting to produce a bizarre, weird and sinister image. The result looks as though it owes a debt to surrealism, dada and the symbolists.

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  • Spider heads – pencil sketch from the imagination

    contemporary art spiders - pencil sketch from the imagination

    Spider heads.

    Pencil on paper. 20.6.2022.

    I frequently draw imaginary heads in unusual situations. On two of these ‘spider heads’ I’ve turned the hair on the heads into long spider legs, with the heads forming the anatomically incorrect spiders’ bodies.
    I think the spider legs in these sketches probably owe something to the spiders of Louise Bourgeois. The spiders may also be influenced by the work of Symbolist artist Odilon Redon, whose The Crying Spider has definnite similarities, although I don’t remember having seeing it before I drew my sketch. I did read a book about Symbolism back in the 1970s, Dreamers of Decadence by Philippe Jullian, so maybe it was in that (When I say I read the book, I mean that I looked at the pictures).
    Like many of my imaginary sketches these were drawn over a cup of coffee in a cafe.

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  • Drawing from the subconscious

    Drawing from the subconscious

    Abstract figure drawn from the imagination

    Pencil on paper. 2021.

    A semi-abstract figure drawn from the imagination with no preparation.
    I have a feeling that my semi-floating figures like this owe something to the Symbolist painter Odilon Redon.

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