Marble Fish

Definitely surreal. The creature looks entirely made of flowing black ink, with the possible exception of a blood red tiny pupil of its eye. (It may be just happenstance, and the eye is blank, but still it looks it to me). The eye looks cold and predatory; this is no friendly picture. The figure is drawn with such curves and fluidity that it looks like ink dropped into water that somehow magically and artistically formed this Lion Fish-like creature from it. It's blackness is not just threatening but also perhaps a sign that it is from the deep, deep, sea, where no pigment could be seen. Or perhaps it is some alien ocean where creatures are black to stand out in the brightly-colored water.

The marble-inked paper, with its flowing yellow and light green waves, makes it look as if it is indeed some alien sea that the black predator swims through. Interspersed with this alien background are drops of bloody red, adding to the menacing effect and reminding us of the creature's weapons and possible hostility to us. If it is blood, whose is it? Perhaps it swims through the aftermath of some brutal kill, looking for its next victim, with its impossible but still threatening spur protecting its mouth, which itself is filled with giant, piranha like fangs. Or the blood is part of some unimaginably brutal world that it lives in, and the blood never washes away.

This is not something I would hang on my kitchen wall, but truly the interplay between fluid and waves, with unexpected colors and bloody spots, makes for a powerful, surreal image.