Invisible Beasts is an artwork anthology that invited artists in the north east to explore the idea of monsters. The first work gave the widest possible brief and I decided to approach creatures from Native American myths, referring back to the best source material possible to ensure a representation that was not coloured by pop cultural uses of them. The result was the Wendigo (an Algonquian monster resulting from cannibalism), the Tupliak (an inuit familiar created from the bones of children and animals), and the Skin Walker (a Navajo witch who can take on the form of animals). These artworks were accompanied by retellings of the mythology for them, as though encountered in the notebook of an unnamed cryptozoologist.
The second edition, titled Invisible Beasts 2: A Hidden Cartography, called for “Those hidden places and the signs within them indicating the passing, residence, presence or summoning of otherwise Hidden Beasts, Monsters, Demons and other creatures.” I returned to America and the idea of notebook from the first edition, this time choosing to focus on uban legends. I blended real myths and locations, original fiction and the work of HP Lovecraft to create three annotated entries of a paranormal guidebook; The Lonely Lift (a haunted elevator in an American mall that trapped unwary shoppers), Thurber’s Hollow (a storm drain inhabited by ghouls), and The Devil’s Hole (An underground cave/lake in Nevada which I populated with the american cryptid, the Gowrow).
I have been asked back for the third edition which is currently under development.
