lymph - drown

Aubrey Beardsley (Detail) 1895

Giuseppe Penone

Untitled, 2000

“Ugly Boy”     2019

iPhone drawing, digital print.

“When I Was Young”    2019

Colored pencil graphite & collage on paper.

Lionel Wendt

Talking Head, 1950

Sheet-fed Gravure

Philipp Otto Runge (1777-1810)

"poem for george miles" by dennis cooper (from the dream police, selected poems 1969-1993)

“Ariel”  2013

Color pencil, graphite and collage on paper.

“A Few of Us Remain”    2016

Collage on paper.

“Dread”    2017

Collage on paper.

Unica Zürn part 2 In Paris, Zürn began experimenting with automatic drawing and anagrams, pursuits Bellmer had a longstanding interest in and encouraged her to pursue. These early works were collected in Hexentexte (1954). Between 1956 and 1964 she had four solo exhibitions of her drawings and her work was included in the “Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme.” The couple frequented the city’s surrealist and related artistic circles, becoming acquainted with Hans Arp, Victor Brauner, André Breton, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Man Ray, Joyce Mansour, André Pieyre de Mandiargues, and others. In 1957 she was introduced to Henri Michaux, who she identified as the “Jasmine Man,” a fantasy figure of her childhood. She fell deeply in love with Michaud, and she joined him in several of his experiments with mescaline. These drug experiences may have precipitated her first mental crisis.

In 1960 Zürn experienced a psychotic episode. She found herself spellbound and hypnotised by Michaux, he appeared before her and ordered her to do things. She was eventually hospitalised, and after this she would be in and out of psychiatric hospitals for the rest of her life, suffering from dissociative states and severe depression. Scholars now generally believe that she was schizophrenic, and that was indeed the initial diagnosis by staff doctors at Karl-Bonhoeffer-Heilstätten during her first hospitalization, though it was later retracted. It has also been suggested that rather than schizophrenia she may have suffered from bipolar disorder with psychotic features.