Tiberiu Chelcea Pittsburg Pennsylvania USA
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'Pale Man'
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Artist's comments ...
Tiberiu Chelcea - Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania USA
Pale Man
Pale Man is a creature from the movie "Pan's Labyrinth", made in Spain in 2006. The movie is set in 1944, after the end of the Spanish civil war somewhere in the Basque mountains, where partisans still fight the fascist troops.
The main character is Ofelia, whose mother is traveling to an army outpost (an old inn) to get married with the sadistic Captain Vidal. Ofelia is really fond of fairy tales, and has a pretty active imagination. She meets a faun that convinces her she's the princes of an underground kingdom, where her real father awaits for her. To meet him, she has to accomplish a series of three dangerous tasks.
One of the Ofelia's tasks is to retrieve a dagger from a room guarded by the Pale Man, a pretty monstrous creature that sits at a lavish dinner table and keeps his eyes on plate. Even though he appears only for about 2 minutes in this movie, he's one of the most horrifying monsters I've seen in a long time. He's probably inspired to a large degree by Goya's "Saturn Devouring His Son".
In this print I've tried to transmit some of the nightmarish aspect of this character. There's something about it that seems to be just coming off the shadows, of the dark places of nightmares, something almost undefined but nonetheless scary.
The print is pulled from two woodblocks, printed on Folio White, and also has some stenciling done. The first block is carved with the figure (printed with Akua Intaglio Carbon Black), then I've stenciled the eyes in red (with some Faust etching ink), and then printed the rest with a mixture of Caligo black and transparent etching base from an old battered board that I've used for cutting and gluing stuff.