Every so often we get an email from a publishing house letting us know about an art book they'd like us to review. As a fan of UK-based artist Olly Moss, I jumped at the chance of letting you, our viewers, know about this brand new first book by Olly Moss called Silhouettes From Pop Culture. Truth be told, we've been fans of this artist's overwhelming talent and wry sense of humor for quite some time (here is an older post of his Star Wars-inspired work). We're not alone as Slashfilm has also called him “one of the most in demand and influential pop culture artists in the world today.”
During May of 2011, Moss put on his first solo exhibition at Gallery 1988 called Paper Cuts where he drew, laser cut, mounted and framed 300 black-on-white paper silhouettes. Not just any kind of silhouettes, mind you, though reminiscent of a Victorian art style, these portraits were of iconic pop culture characters from movies, TV, comics and videogames.
As he humorously says in the introduction of his book, “So obsessively, for months, I drew characters from the side and cut them out of black paper using powerful industrial lasers. Perhaps that's a little like cheating, but the laser appealed because I have the brittle wrists of an eighty-year-old and using it secretly made me feel like a Bond-villan. I'm not going to life, I may have cackled once or twice as it powered up.”
Out of the 300 silhouettes he created, his personal favorites are in this book. Today, we present to you a sneak peek. The eagerly anticipated book will be officially released on Amazon on October 30, 2012. It's just asking you to sit down with your friends or family to guess each person in the portrait. Better yet, challenge your own popular culture knowledge and try and name all of them in this post.
You can meet Olly in person and get your book signed by him at the London Megastore on Thursday November 8, 2012 from 6 to 7pm.
Big thanks to Titan Books for sending us a copy of the book.
