My pal Joe Newton just sent me a link to Vania Zouraliov's online portfolio. I've seen some of this guy's work for a bit but never had a chance to sit and really look at it. It's very beautiful with heavy macabre elements (there is an image that looks like a Joel Peter Witkin image was used partially for reference). Which means of course I love it. Be sure to look through the "tonal drawings" part of the portfolio.
From his bio: "He was something of a child prodigy in his homeland, championed by many influential classical musicians including Ashkenazi, Spivakov and Menuhin. He even had television programmes made about him and was introduced to famous communist artists, godfathers of social realism, who told him that his work was from the Devil. By the age of 13, he was exhibiting internationally, visited Canterbury several times as well as Paris, Colmar and Berlin..."
