Blanche the rise of grim dark: a review.

 John Blanche is my favorite painter. His nineties action figures designs meets the northern renascence painting tradition destroys me (other painters I love for some context… Zak S and Max Ernst. H. R. Giger,  Mathew Ritchie, and Yoshi Toshi).

John Blanche was a comercial artist, this is a great sin in the eyes of the traditional art world. He also was a concept artist for toy solders (possibly an even greater sin).

All that adds up to is that there is no large format coffee table book of print of Mr John Blanch’s work by Taschen books. Which is more proof we are in a rotten timeline.

After having read John Blanche biography I walk confident that I can be a fan of his work without guilt on a moral outrage level. Many of my favorite painters are amoral fuckers.  John from all the sacred writings in this books seems by every measure a fundamentally decent person. Coming across as, wise, kind, and gentle.

Never mind he is one of the most neglected artist of measure in history. Never mind he created the entire visual vocabulary of a sub-genre. All that is neat but ultimately he is talented on pure and simple level that meets such a high standard it can really be frustrating for other aspiring creators of stuff.

There is no arguing that when John spent months on a painting he could render his vision to a very high standard. Or, that when he grabbed his technical pen and let rip the thirty minute quick sketches had more value than most anyone could carve out of the void when given the same amount of time working with a blank page.

From his early psychedelic Tolkien phase. To his breakthrough Street punk meets the renascence phase. Until his late life rendition of grim dark… John never stopped evolving, progressing and challenging himself to the very end.

From the voodoo forest until the lace punk of en garde. He was always staking a claim on some new artistic territory and then inviting the world to make of it what it will.

The man was near infinite and pure in his eccentricity and invention as an artist. So his authorized biography was a treat for me. Yeah I want that big book of Blanche art printed to a taschen standard… we don’t get that this is a text heavy print on demand rendition of a brilliant artists life. A lot of the classic paintings and drawings are here but the print quality leaves a lot to be desired as far as the images go.

The price is also quite high for what you get…but it is still one of my favorite books I own and one of the most joyfully I have read

Also the Blanchjitsu (tiny toy soldiers cut up a glued together as three-dimensional collages and then painted meticulously with a jewelers care) that basically invented modern kit bashing as a hobby movement is represented with some photos of said toy solders. Go ahead and Look up some of John custom toy soldiers and see with how much care and effort he put into them (and that is what he did for fun in his spare time). Be amazed and terrified at the sheer number of tiny Mona Lisa’s painted in every context of the chaos.

John passed away recently. He burned like the quiet embers of a fire giving warmth and beauty to a hostile world that never truly understood or fully appreciated him. when that light went out the world truly felt Grim and Dark.