John Southworth is an acclaimed singer songwriter. David Ouimet is a New York born and bred artist: together they have create a work as mysterious and beguiling as a trip down Alice In Wonderland’s Rabbit Hole, based somewhere in modern times or is it?
This is something you will work out as you read and dream your way across the pages of this fascinating space somewhere between night and morning, where the weird is reality and reality, a thing of the dawn.
Ouimets incredibly detailed monochromatic illustrations, you could hardly call them drawings, add that sense of distance, of being in a time warp, as he has captured in complexity the nuance of the words, which in turn encourages the imagination to move beyond the mundane.
‘Fingus the Fisherman and the First Watermelon’ is such a piece where the illustrations are very simplistic, yet the words are far more complex, blending the teasing combination of fishermen and watermelons –something which does stretch the imagination a little.
Bizarre, off-key and intriguing you can totally relate to the last piece in the book, ‘The Magic Box with the Elephant’, which transports you into a time and space largely inherited by the older generation as they age and drift slowly back to a time when they were young. A time they can relive once again in their minds.
Their memory’s come to mean a lot as they sit and wait for time to pass.
A beautiful collection of words enhanced by the magnificence of the artwork makes a fitting tribute to a wonderfully delicate collection created to please the writer, develop the artist and unlock the secret recesses of the readers mind.
Wonderful, enchanting and delicious!
| Author | John Southworth, illustrated by David Ouimet |
| Publisher | Simply Read Books |
| ISBN | 9781927018170 |
| Website | http://www.newsouthbooks.com.au |
