While at LCAD, I centered my senior thesis on the concept of Bestiaries.
A Bestiary is a type of illuminated manuscript that details various animals from across the globe, often accompanied with stories that acts as a moral or religious guide. Before modern man's agencies of travel, these books were some of the only glimpses people had at fauna from outside of their region. It was actually common for the illustrations to be wildly inaccurate, as well, for not all artists had actually witnessed the creatures they drew.
To give this project my own spin, I wanted to turn the concept around by focusing my Bestiary on demonology. Capable of speech and reasoning, but inhabiting a variety of chimera bodies, demons reside in an inbetween space between man and beast. They may not act as very fulfilling moral compasses, but one could fill pages and pages with their strange shapes and forms. The source of the specific mythos I based these demons on was taken from the Ars Goetia.
A Bestiary is a type of illuminated manuscript that details various animals from across the globe, often accompanied with stories that acts as a moral or religious guide. Before modern man's agencies of travel, these books were some of the only glimpses people had at fauna from outside of their region. It was actually common for the illustrations to be wildly inaccurate, as well, for not all artists had actually witnessed the creatures they drew.
To give this project my own spin, I wanted to turn the concept around by focusing my Bestiary on demonology. Capable of speech and reasoning, but inhabiting a variety of chimera bodies, demons reside in an inbetween space between man and beast. They may not act as very fulfilling moral compasses, but one could fill pages and pages with their strange shapes and forms. The source of the specific mythos I based these demons on was taken from the Ars Goetia.
The Demon, Aamon.
Mixed media sculpture. 2014.
Mixed media sculpture. 2014.
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This was by far the most involved piece from this body of work, and the only non-illustration. I wanted to create a realistic, poseable sculpture of a demon. Aamon has a sculpted head, claws, and horns, with hand-painted glass eyes. His body was created out of fake fur and vinyl sewn over an internal armature, and stuffed. Standing about 1′ tall and 4′ long, he’s about the size of a cat. His head, arms, tail, and even individual claws are all poseable.
The Seventh Spirit of the Ars Goetia is Aamon. He is a Marquis great in power, and most stern. He appeareth like a Wolf with a Serpent’s tail, bearing the head of a great Owl. He telleth all things Past and to Come. He procureth feuds and reconcileth controversies between friends.
