I recently discovered these striking drawings by a contemporary Italian artist Virginia Mori born in 1981 and based on Milano. Mori is very prolific and imaginative and all her drawings seem like little pieces of a silent nightmarish world which is filled with mysteries and surreal occurrences and brings to mind the spirit of Edward Gorey, Poe and the childish and gory sketches of Tim Burton. Most of these drawings are black and white, and mostly drawn with ballpoint pen, and are rather simplistic in composition and the elements; nothing unnecessary is drawn, only the essence of the scene, backgrounds and detailing are unnecessary. I quite like that because my eye is drawn only to what is important. Similarly to Edward Gorey’s “Gashlycrumb Tinies”, Mori’s girls are seen in strange, twisted poses and odd situations, often the head is separate from the rest of the body, handshaking through a hole in the stomach of another girl, head through pillow… And when I say silent, I mean that drawing is a silent art form and looking at these girls, I get the impression that they have a lot of say, but that they are unable to and this intensified the mystery and fires my imagination.
Byron's Muse 