Prince


by Ben Duarri-Screen Prince

This, the first of my The Royalty Series, a portrait of the mercurial artist known as Prince.
Using the lyrics of his dacefloor classic b-side to Lets Go Crazy - Erotic City, Prince at the height of his Purple Rain era circa 1984. The song was hard to single out from such a vast opus, but the reference to bringing to life a whole dark erotic personality of a city, ”funking in2 the dawn” and ”creamy thighs“ swayed it.
I set out to make an image that was truly erotic only using the lyrics, face and eye contact with the viewer. I looked at lace and lingere, decorative motifs and flourishing from baroque to art-nouveau and blended it with Shakespearian calligraphy. All the letters were constructed with pen and ink and correction pen then photocopied.
So far, only one edition on A2 stock printed in a tinted gold blend and purple and magenta blend has been printed along with three small Artist proof editions of seven, on coloured papers and soft colour hues with various purple blends.
















* Screen Prince calligram art prints and posters are available now at
artrepublic.com
or contact the artist directly at
thescreenprince(at)hotmail(dot)com

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Forsythia

Image
Finally spring arrived showing its first splendor with the forsythia! I was walking this afternoon and saw the yellow forsythia around the corner... it reminded me the famous concret poem by Mary Ellen Solt, Forsythia, composed in 1965 and published in 1966. “The design of Forsythia is made from the letters of the name of the flowering shrub and their equivalents in the Morse Code. The text is part of the design.” ~ Mary Ellen Solt " Forsythia by Mary Ellen Solt was typographically concretized by John Dearstyne. In the introduction to Flowers in Concrete , George Zadek writes: “Traditionally the typographer has given form and order to words, thus serving both the writer and the reader. His problem is mainly one of clarity of communication, literary meaning, and hopefully aesthetic contribution to the art of the printed page. When publishing concrete poetry, it is sometimes difficult to draw a line between the contributions, as well as the final responsibilities, of the poet and
Read more

Calligrams for a calm like nothing else

Image
by Joni James I started my journey in calligraphy when I was in my early 20's and living in Alaska. Often asked to make name place cards or inspirational quotes for people, I began taking classes when I returned to the Seattle area in 1984. I was always fascinated with calligrams but never really made any until this year. One of my favorite artists is Picasso, so I was thrilled when I did some searching for calligram information and discovered that Guillaume Apollinaire was a friend of his! For me, more then any other art form, making these calligrams gives me a calm like nothing else . I can feel the rhythm of the words as I create and the white space tells me what to do next. I'm so thankful to find other calligram artists! It's a beautifully unique form of art and can be used in so many ways! 1932 Ford Coupe Calligram This was made especially for my uncle and I sent it to him as a surprise recently. He was thrilled! Motherhood and Pregnancy Calligram
Read more