Comments by Semper Lux*
source instagram @semperluxus
This
is my *second* post about this metamorphic Brazilian version that
transforms Tenniel's illustrations into something entirely new.
This
book is a true kaleidoscope, Peliano rearranges the images into
ever-changing patterns which lead to new interpretations of the story:
"For
each of the two Alice books I developed a different logical strategy:
for Looking Glass, I created a game of puzzles that are dismantled &
recreated all the time, interacting with Tenniel's original images"
1:
Back cover: While Alice looks through the mini-Alice telescope which we
saw in Wonderland, the reader is looking inside a large kaleidoscope
with rotating images of Red Queen
2: Alice goes through the prismatic mirror, exchanging the geometry of her world for a completely different one
3:
The jagged prisms of the flowers show their irritation with Alice, an
echo of Andersen's Snow Queen, where jagged pieces of a broken mirror
brought discord to the world
4: Inside the kaleidoscope Red Queen leads Alice in an endless race of repeating patterns
5:
Reality & perception shift again when Alice exits the forest with
the fawn, who will now perceive Alice as something dangerous
6:
Alice discreetly holds her nose as the wave of odour emanates from the
ham sandwich that was kept for too long in Haigha's unrefrigerated bag
7: A geometrical math problem - how to cut the π into 3:14 pieces
8:
Different facets of meaning made visible: everything that White Knight
says goes into Alice's one ear, & comes out of the other, quite
changed, just like in the Broken Telephone game
9: A mandala of memories hovers about Alice's head like a halo, a mirror image of Red King's dream earlier in the story
10: The psychedelic multiplicities of the different facets of Peliano's Looking Glass multiverse
montage: @Semperlux
11:
Alice goes through the Golden Arches to meet Tweedledum &
Tweedledee. Their uniforms reflect McDonald's colours, their bellies
reflect their fondness for Big Macs
12: Walrus & Carpenter are on a huge checkered picnic tablecloth that foreshadows the doom of the poor Oysters
13: Sheep's shop :
The Egyptian sun-disc of Aten, depicted as the solar disk emitting rays over its worshippers.
The
pharaoh Akhenaton had a Hymn to the Sun: "It has been called 'one of
the most significant and splendid pieces of poetry to survive from the
pre-Homeric world.'"
Other elements in the picture: An upside down pyramid & a kite for reaching the sun
14: Waves of sound burst from the drums, deafening poor Alice like Quasimodo in his noisy belltower in Notre Dame
15:
The Final Banquet: The ray of light is like the light that hit St Paul
on the Road to Damascus, an epiphany that changed the status quo of his
world.
And the prismatic mirror cracks, and reality changes once more, like in Tennyson's poem:
"Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror crack'd from side to side;
'The curse is come upon me,' cried
The Lady of Shalott."
Kaleidoscope = "observation of beautiful forms." Just like this book.
STORIES
ADRIANA
PELIANO, artist and designer, has been working with collage for over
twenty years: "I'm a collagist - I mix, displace, & play with Art."
Initially
using scissors, glue and various magazines, she also started to
incorporate digital art. With curious objects she created assemblages
and metamorphoses.
She
did two Masters in Visual Arts, one in England, at the Kent Institute of
Art (2002), and another at the University of São Paulo (2012), this one
with the dissertation Through Surrealism and What Alice Found There.
A
member of the Lewis Carroll societies of England, the United States and
Japan, in 2009 she founded the Lewis Carroll Society of Brazil, of
which she is president.
In
2012 she received the Jabuti award for the graphic design of Alice's
Adventures Underground, which she translated together with Myriam
Ávila.
Semper Lux
is an enigmatic entity, witty collector and presenter of precious and
supercalifragilistic illustrated books, with a great research and full
of unsuspected references, who solve some puzzles, and creates many others.
Follow on instagram: @semperluxus
