Ciou’s Siamese
Cats
Ruben De Somer
Everybody knows that the impact
of “those very special people” has been great throughout cultural history on all
levels. The first time we discussed their impact on popular culture was in a
short article on Roger Corman’s carnival of the dead. However this time we
will focus on a totally different topic, graphic art.
A couple of months ago a
Franco-Belgian (born in Toulouse, France, living in Brussels) artist Ciou
published her first book which was lovingly called “Chat’s Siamois”. Ciou’s
artworks are cute and scary, a mixture between Alice in Wonderland and eerie
night-mares. She paints with acrylic and ink and makes collage for the
background. Her art is mainly influenced by her hobby which is collecting:
animal
skeletons, Vintage toys, specialty Bambi toys, taxidermy, tattoo and music. She
is intrigued by primitive art, religious art, Japanese culture, Art nouveau,
Symbolyst art, dolls, pin ups, cemeteries, and carnivals.
Chat siamois is a book written by
Guillaume Bianco
and published by Venus dea a small publishing company and collective of artistst
and writers. Bianco based his story with the heroine
Emmy Hyacinthe Muffin and her
Siamese cat on ciou’s drawings which he molded into a more or less cohesive
story about a young girl whose cat gives birth to a Siamese cat. The book is a
scary descent into the weird world of ciou. The book is filled with creepy
illustration, which in a way are kind of cute. The book ends with the
decapitation of the cute Siamese cat and the burial of the head (kept in jar) at
the cemetery. If you are interested in the whole story then I suggest you try
and find it and buy it.
However “Chat Siamois/Siamese Cat” isn’t the
only work where she touches the sideshow world. Many of her drawings and
paintings feature mermaids, one eyed monsters, and many other weird creatures.
Illustration: when we were at
a signing at the undercover bookstore in Ghent we brought along a photograph of
the Siamese twins of tamise and the protective sleeve of a photograph of the
early
part of the 20th
century. We asked her if she would be willing to draw on the sleeve and this is
what
she came up with.
Illustration: book cover
(copyright venus dea/ ciou)
Illustration: back of cover
(copyright venus dea/ ciou)
