Tim Burton Art Exhibit Coming to Toronto on November 26th

According to the New York Times, the acclaimed Tim Burton exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art (which came to a close this Monday) is stopping off in Toronto, after the Australian tour, at the new Bell Lightbox (which, evidently, isn't finished yet - and is everything in this city named after a telephone provider now?) from November 26th to April 17, 2011. Because I've matured since the height of my Burton-worship from the teen goth years (due to both growing out of the phase and because, lovely as they may be, I'm tired of seeing Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter don corsets and fantastical wigs together), I'm not sure how excited I should be for this. It has piqued my curiosity, though, and I may go solely for the severed Sarah Jessica Parker prop head.

Mark Ryden and Natalie Shau

Another quick feature relating to my obsession with pretty doe-eyed creepy girls.

Mark Ryden has always been one of my favourite artists, back when I first caught a glance of his artwork for Clear Hearts, Grey Flowers, the last album by the great but now defunct band Jack Off Jill.





There is so way I can adequately express how much inspiration I've derived from his work for my own art. He incorporates everything that fascinates me into each of his paintings - surrealism, disturbing imagery, a skewed sense of what is traditionally beautiful, and little girls with those big, eerie eyes.

Also sharing Mark Ryden's penchant for twisting the beautiful, Natalie Shau, who I first encountered on DeviantArt way back when that site used to interest me, draws more heavily on fairy tales and a gothic influence in her work. But they still features haunting little ladies.

Angelique Houtkamp

The first time I ventured downtown with a certain someone who is currently instilling my life with all kinds of awesome, we ended up somewhere between Bloor and Bathurst and Bloor and Spadina. I am terrible with directions. Please do not ask me exactly where I was, but I did end up getting stuck in Honest Ed's, and spent a few brief minutes wondering if I was to be trapped between a display of Virgin Mary clocks and 99 cent peanuts for the rest of my life.

In addition to discovering that yes, there ARE other shops near Bloor and Yonge that don't involve creepy old men selling sex toys and PVC bondage gear, I also managed to come across a Dutch artist's book in a graphic novel store that indulged my love of pin-up girls and body modification. Her name is Angelique Hautkamp, and my god, I would kill just to have her design a tattoo for me.


According to her website, she learned to tattoo at the same time she learned how to paint, inspired by a friend's gallery show. The influence of traditional style tattoos on her work is very obvious, but this only adds to their charm. I've always been a fan of beautiful but strange doe-eyed girls as subjects in art, and Angelique's flapper skeletons and animal-human hybrids are enormously appealing. Plus, as the people who know me are aware, every single aspect of tattoo and piercing culture never ceases to fascinate me. Angelique's art represents both past and future for the body modification world, a throwback to the history of tattoo art and a message to modern naysayers that tattoos can certainly be fine art too.