Inspired by the harsh, crude, and some might say cruel, hard rock music of Metallica – the über-heavy metal band – these impasto paintings and the text that penetrates and blurs them, evoke the dark and dangerous prehistoric caves which birthed human culture and have symbolically hid our earliest nightmares for centuries. Viewed from another perspective the pages seem to suggest the surfaces of other planets that we can only travel to in dreams, the never never lands of the galaxy. For as the night holds many stars it also holds our darkest fears of the unknown and unseen.

The smell of the materials in Enter Sandman, as in many Organik books, is designed to provoke an olfactory text that transports the reader to a mindset of more basic perceptions and emotions appropriate for a book about fear, the dark realms of sleep, and the nightmares described in the Metallica song. The yellow turmeric is analogous to the sand of the song title and the dark cinnamon evokes the encroaching night.  Spices often catalyze memories and the choice of these particular spices brings us back to childhood and its attendant anxieties.

Text: lyrics from the song Enter Sandman, written by guitarist James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich of the heavy metal band Metallica, on the self-titled album (also known as “The Back Album”.)

Cinnamon and turmeric impasto (with PVA) pigment-covered pages, ink, stencil cutting, and stencil spray paint. Handsewn binding with soft covers. 14.5″ x 15.5.” Unique. 2012.