7.20.2008

Lynda Barry's Zen Monkeys

Paging through the Summer issue of the Buddhist magazine Tricycle, I came upon these excellent paintings by artist Lynda Barry, whose Ernie Pook's Comeek has been a mainstay of many an altweekly comics page for years. Barry says she started creating the monkeys after a friend's death, but says the content of the imagery is less important than the act of painting:
These monkey paintings are fossils of experience, the remnants of a hand in motion, of breath and being. The vehicle of ink and brush is available to anyone. The picture you make is not so important. Move your brush not to make a picture, but make a picture in order to move your brush.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Beautiful images. This also confirms my nagging suspicion that Barry's claustrophic cartoons are drawn that way on purpose, and not because she doesn't know any other way of cartooning. These monkeys are as restful to look at as Barry's self-portraits are bothersome.