I wanted to take a moment to highlight the extraordinary talents of
a couple of friends of mine, Moco and Maize, who together create art
under the name Mandem. If you're familiar with the darkwave or
steampunk scene at all, you may have already seen their work. Their art
has been on the covers and in the liners of many of The Cruxshadows'
albums, as well as the Airship Pirates RPG book by the steampunk band Abney Park. They describe their style as Mythpunk Art Noir, which I
think describes it very well!
All of their work is wonderful, but some personal favorites of mine are the ones of Ariadne. They are beautiful and haunting. I plan to buy some prints soon to put on my Ariadne shrine.
I highly recommend you check out their website as well as their Etsy store.
And last but not least, here's a link (posted
with their permission) to Maize's undergraduate honors thesis, entitled "The Cretan Cycle: Sex, Sacrifice and the Sacred Beast."
Back in 2007 when I first read it, I was at a
point where I was starting to actively explore my attraction to Dionysos
more seriously. The myth of Ariadne, Theseus and the Minotaur had
always been a favorite. But the thesis really blew me away, and I remember that several points in the thesis confirmed things I had felt intuitively but hadn't had any references for. If you're at all interested in Greek myth it's definitely worth
reading. The thesis includes some of their art and part of an
unfinished graphic novel that I really hope they finish someday! I'm
told they may expand upon and publish this whole work eventually.
I meant to post a blog about their work much
earlier than this. I was planning to reread the thesis more carefully
and go into detail about how awesome it is. But I think it speaks for
itself much better than I could - so check it out!
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