Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Necromorph Exhibit--Darin Shuler


Darin Schuler's Necromorph
is a Narwhal named Werewhal

Rachelle Taylor found Darin Schuler through the Artist Trust
website,
www.artisttrust.org, where he had recently won a GAP
(Grant for Artist Projects) Award and asked him to submit a piece for the show.
His watercolor and ink creation is named “Werewhal” and features
a Narwhal—which in real life is a whale with a 10 ft long tusk
sticking out the front and which actually exists, believe it or not!

“What is the inspiration behind including the Narwhal image?”

"Narwhals are in most of my work right now just because they are one of the most fantastical real animals on the planet. A good chunk of people don't even know they exist. They are sometimes call the 'Unicorn of the sea,' and I think that's cool. So, to make a person turn into a Narwhal was my way of playing with the Werewolf idea. They are both mythical creatures, I wish they were real," Darin says.

So I asked Darin: "What is he doing in the middle? Why is everyone looking at him?"

He said he wanted to tell a "really good story with a tattered note stabbed to the top of a tree trunk, the beasties from hell, and the spooky twin birds that might be ghosts or frozen or soaked in blue moon light. The only part of the story that I am sure of is that there is a man morphing into a Narwhal. The rest is interpretive."

"How exactly are you using colors in your work?"

"I was just thinking about spooky Halloween coloring. You know, on a freaky fall night the clouds might be green instead of gray. All the colors just fell into place," Darin says.

"Was this piece composed specifically for the Necromorph exhibit?"

"Yeah," Darin says, "Rachelle asked me if I would want to create something for the show and we both love Halloween so I though it would be fun. When someone sees this piece I hope they feel the need to create a story for it, or maybe think about how Narwhals are similar to Werewolves, and mostly I want that person to feel a powerful sense of terror."

Find more of Darin's work at:


www.darinshuler.com/home.html



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