mark da cunha lopes, from the ‘vertebrata’ series, title unknown, via trendland.
this photograph by french photomanipulator Marc Da Cunha Lopes just does my head in, in a very pleasant way. i told you bones and pastels were not incompatible!
what this photograph has, indupitably, is the element of surprise; but it’s more than the ‘wait, what‘ moments scattered throughout the rest of the series (‘vertebrata,’ which has just finished showing at rabouan-moussion gallery in paris). there’s something viscerally alarming about this one – of course there is, it’s a huge disembodied head, floating around some ordinary suburban home like it belongs there – or perhaps (more chillingly) is on the prowl. more than that, it’s clearly a parrot, and i’m pretty sure i’m not the only one who wouldn’t want to run into a beak like that in a dark ally.
maybe i just have an over-tactile imagination, but this image actually fills me with a bit of genuine horror. it brings to mind legendary creatures like the nukekubi, a japanese and chinese capable myth capable of detaching its head from its body so the former can float off into the night to devour victims with a mouthfull of shark-like teeth, before returning to its neck in the morning to create a deceptively human whole. in similar fashion the image above instills in me a spine-groping sort of dread, in part because it looks too real to be anything other than terrifying.
mark da cunha lopes, from the ‘vertebrata’ series, title unknown, via trendland.
of course, since parrots aren’t really carniverous one has to wonder whether what looks like a saber toothed-something skeleton might in fact be more lethal. on the other hand, if you’ve ever had interractions with a parrot, you’ll know they do like to…chew things. or chew everything. in something that size you’ve got to admit that’s a little intimidating.
yours, with snappish affection,
nyx.
