Subcultures regularly concoct personal fashions or musical scenes but on rare occasions they can radiate and crystalize into whole visual art movements. Gothic subculture is a rare example of how a subculture can construct a viable and unique visual arts ministry.
Art alone is a sticky wicket to define and adding “gothic” to the definition doesn’t make it any easier. But “gothic” is generally definable in its sub-cultural sense. Here is Wikipedia’s shot at it:
The goth subculture has associated tastes in music, aesthetics, and fashion, whether or not all individuals who share those tastes are in fact members of the goth subculture. Gothic music encompasses a number of different styles. Common to all is a tendency towards a lugubrious, mystical sound and outlook. Styles of dress within the subculture range from deathrock, punk, androgynous, Victorian, some Renaissance and medieval style clothes, or combinations of the above, most often with black attire, makeup and hair.
Gothic art results as a byproduct of its definitive subcultural sensibility. The task of exploring the Cimmerian world of modern gothic art is the goal of author Jasmine Becket-Griffith in the book Gothic Art Now.
Gothic Art Now is a chimerical showcase of gothic talent that spans the realms of painting, sculpture, mixed media, and multimedia art forms all in one package. On every page whispers of the progressive and the eerily reminiscent contrast like the paradox of the subculture itself. Spawned from non-conformist sensibilities the works in Gothic Art Now are not without historical and contemporary parallels or reference. The art is just as tribal as its German-Scandinavian ancestors and just as otherworldly as the bygone French architecture. The works also have their own distinct impressions of content that creates a unique mythology and identity for the gothic subculture. As a moving theme of art it both borrows and creates while being aware of the paradox.
Representing 2D art in the collection are gothic painters like David Bowers who masterfully create a surreal intimacy and irony with paintings such as "The Price of Honey." Other paintings such as "Where Owl Perched Pockets Hold All the Souvenirs" by Lola conceive impossible and distorted creatures that seem to be unwitting victims of their own art.
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