Laura New
If you have ever read the very first edition of Grimms fairy tales (1812/15) you will have noted their distinct lack of embellishment, the clumsiness in their multiple transcriptions and the flippancy of tragic, grotesque and brutal endings. Repunzel is impregnated, Snow White’s real mother is the one trying to kill her, the devils wife outwits her husband in exchange for nightly beatings and cannibalism, child murder and domestic slavery are rife.
The original stories that the Brothers Grimm recorded plunge you into ice cold warnings against stupidity and idleness, devoid of the happy endings and soft focus versions of Disney that we are used to today and instead mirror the harshness of reality in short cruel bursts.
Laura’s work depicts snapshots of fairytales without a story, hints of recognisable characters frozen in mundane settings or the suspense of a potential horror. They are uncomfortable, frivolous and odd. Her work is primarily created in pen and ink on both two and three dimensional paper structures and for Art Car Boot Fair ELECTRIC edition she has put together a small series of miniature dioramas that are lit from the inside. There are flickering fires, lights in foreboding houses in the woods and white noise tv’s in the home of the three bears.
Laura’s book ‘Dystopian Fairytales’ will also be available and is a self published title containing stories where the illustration came before the tale.
