Intro

Is it that the life you are forced into when your mother pushes you out between her thighs that sort of gifts you with the interests you end up with?

If so, it really is no wonder why I am the way I am.

I am deeply drawn to the twisted human mind, to the secrets that hide in darkness, to that which forces our minds to turn itself inside and out in madness. I am attracted to it, because life has forced me on that journey over and over again. I’ve been in places in my mind where most people would never dare to go.

I am not scared of the dark.
I thrive in it.

I am a very visual person. I percieve, interpret and understand the world mainly through what I see. This might sound vain in some perspectives, but it is not. Imagery is everything to me. My mind is visual, I think and understand mainly through metaphores. My mind is gigantic and constantly expanding.

If one thing leads to another, there’s really no surprise I ended up with this domain and the goal to write about the grotesque in art (and literature).

The concept of grotesque is much larger than fits into this blog post, so I’ll leave that for the entire blog. But it is something I’ve wanted to dive into for a long time, and now the time has come.

Aside from being retired as a photographer, I have also studied art history, focusing on theory/methods in analyzing black and white photography (analogue, mainly). I am trained, partly through these studies, but also from other parts of my life, to be strongly analytic, connect the dots and recognize patterns. I also happen to be very good at it.

What I’ll say about the term grotesque in art (and literature) is that every period of time (epoch) has it’s grotesque style. Every culture, every people, through every epoch, has had its own version of the grotesque – it’s fascinating.

I am not scared of the dark.

Art grotesque contains an enormous variety of imagery that sweeps through the history of art. What we may percieve as grotesque today is only a small piece of it, and my personal guess is that it varies between what individuals see as grotesque, scary, and what their personal demons look like.

What you’ll find on this blog is my personal reflections over the concept of grotesque, art and literature that I find interesting, and most likely also my attempts on analyzing the grotesque in one direction or the other.

I don’t claim to be something that I’m not. I don’t have a degree in art history (unfortunately). I am not a teacher. I just enjoy and appreciate certain aspects of the world a bit more than others, and I like to share my perspective.

What I can say, though, is that to me, numerous disciplines intertwine. That makes it so much more interesting. Art, literature and philosophy tend to meld together in my mind. Psychology is not far behind. By understanding how we see, interpret and understand what’s in front of us, but also to know what we hide from, what scares us (and why it does) leads to the beginning of a terrifying but exciting journey into our own minds.

I am not afraid of the dark.

I made friends with the demons hiding a long, long time ago.

I am going to enjoy blogging on this domain. I’ve dived head first into the darkest pit of them all – my own mind. I won’t do that again, but since I am who I am, I really love exploring different perspectives of what I have experienced.

Madness can be an eye-opening experience.

So – let’s explore that madness together. Let’s find out what hides on the dark side of the moon. Let’s dance with demons. Let’s consume the insanity and lose the grip of reality for a while.