Drawn for Dir en grey— (Chicago 2011.12.18).
It had been a couple of years since I last saw them live (I was away during the tour last year), so there was a fair amount of anticipation and hope on my part. The performance this time helped to heal something, reworked something inside. A powerful, intense storm of emotion. Thank you—
Originally, I intended to draw something quite different, but deciding that I should actually strive to progress as an artist, I set out to try and create a work that would in some way convey the atmosphere of DUM SPIRO SPERO as an album. I pictured two different kinds of movement, but not wanting to compromise on scale, only had the time to develop one of them. This kind of spiraling, expanding motion came to mind first; there is also a companion image of sinking and flowing downwards.
Tired of locking in figures with concrete, rigid detail as I tend to do, I wanted to include some small detail, but keep this very loose and free overall. Unlike some art I have drawn and given away in the past, this was emotionally heavy to work on, so I would approach it with a certain hesitation every time, but I feel that it was important to confront those emotions and work with them.
For the first time in a few years, since first seeing Dir en grey live in 2006, I could hand this to Kyo directly. While some small part of me wished I had something more impressive to present, I also felt very consciously that this was a step in the overall process. A simple feeling of: this is where I am now and I need to keep going.
Although guided by the sound and themes of DUM SPIRO SPERO as a whole, I decided to title this after THE BLOSSOMING BEELZEBUB—one of the tracks that intrigued me the most on the album.
Ink, 20” x 30”.
Larger version {{ here }}.
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