August Gloom
Highlighting art, literature, music, poetry, and film for the month of August in the year 2024.
Art
Amaya Gurpide
Mixed Media, (b. Spain 1974)
Having learned her love of art from her father, a painter, Amaya attended the School of Fine Arts of Pamplona in her native Spain. In 1999, she moved to New York City to pursue her studies in figure painting and drawing, studying at the National Academy of Design, the Art Students League of New York, and the Grand Central Academy. In 2014, Amaya took part in the creation of the U.S. branch of the Florence Academy of Art in Jersey City, and in 2016 she was recruited as an Adjunct Professor of Anatomy and Drawing by the New York Academy of Art. — Artist website
With her turn toward drawing, Amaya’s process has refined – forms emerge on warm-toned papers from built up layers of graphite, chalks, gouache, and charcoal, often with the use of brushes to achieve a softer, more painterly effect. Experimentation allows each narrative to cohere and coalesce, and she is connected to her works by the intimacy of this creative act. — Artist website
I first came across Amaya Gurpide’s work years ago while running a short-lived print journal I had going from 2017 to 2020. Her work combines all the mediums and emotions that resonate deeply with me: the texture of charcoal, the richness of oil, monochrome tonality, and a balance between sadness and inspiration. Each piece feels alive, as if capturing real moments in time—moments that might seem insignificant at first glance but are charged with meaning and chosen to represent a specific emotion or chapter in the artist's life. There’s a reality in her work that draws me in, a haunting beauty that lingers. The way she translates her inner world onto custom made surfaces makes me feel as though I understand the mind behind the art, as if I can glimpse the thoughts and emotions that guide her hand. I find her work not just fascinating and alluring but also deeply human, with an ability to connect the viewer to a profound sense of shared experience.
Visit artist website
Visit artist Instagram
Literature
“Kafka on the Shore” by Haruki Murakami
First published in 2002
Synopsis:
Kafka on the Shore, a tour de force of metaphysical reality, is powered by two remarkable characters: a teenage boy, Kafka Tamura, who runs away from home either to escape a gruesome oedipal prophecy or to search for his long-missing mother and sister; and an aging simpleton called Nakata, who never recovered from a wartime affliction and now is drawn toward Kafka for reasons that, like the most basic activities of daily life, he cannot fathom. Their odyssey, as mysterious to them as it is to us, is enriched throughout by vivid accomplices and mesmerizing events. Cats and people carry on conversations, a ghostlike pimp employs a Hegel-quoting prostitute, a forest harbors soldiers apparently unaged since World War II, and rainstorms of fish (and worse) fall from the sky. There is a brutal murder, with the identity of both victim and perpetrator a riddle—yet this, along with everything else, is eventually answered, just as the entwined destinies of Kafka and Nakata are gradually revealed, with one escaping his fate entirely and the other given a fresh start on his own.— Goodreads
I’m recommending one of my all-time favorite books since I haven’t come across anything this past month that I felt was truly worth sharing. Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami stands out as my favorite of his works. It's an ode to the wanderer, the seeker of meaning, the curious soul, and those yearning to escape a life imposed upon them rather than one they've crafted themselves. It’s been a while since I last read this book, but I recently pulled it off the shelf to revisit its brilliance—and because I'm recommending it now. I don’t hand out 5-star ratings easily, but this novel earned it. Every chapter feels glorious to me.
You can find this book at most major retailers and easily online. Check your local bookstore first, please.
Music
“Six Pieces for Solo Violin” — Sophia Jani
Released in May, 2024
Recommended if you like classical, solo violin, chamber music.
“I composed the Six Pieces for Solo Violin from fall 2020 to summer 2023 for the violinist Teresa Allgaier. The project began with the observation that the violin has remained pretty much the same for hundreds of years and has developed relatively little in that time. The great important violin cycles, such as those by Biber, Bach, Paganini, Ysaÿe or Sciarrino, were therefore not so much a reaction to the development of the instrument itself - in contrast to the piano, for example - but to what kind of music could be written on it within the capabilities of the players. So the repertoire developed based on the tastes of a particular era and who was writing for whom, rather than for reasons of technical progress.”
— Sophia Jani
Listen to one of my favorite songs, “II. Arpegio.”
Poetry
“Crush” by Richard Siken
Published in 2005
Again, as mentioned in last month’s Gloom newsletter— I’ve been struggling to find newly released poetry books to recommend so I’ve been going back to classics and more popular poets to either reread, or read collections I’ve missed. I had never heard of this book of poetry by Richard Siken until I found it browsing through a local bookstore. Once I saw the forward was written by Louise Glück, a favorite poet of mine, I knew I had to give it a chance and immediately purchased it.
Richard Siken’s Crush, selected as the 2004 winner of the Yale Younger Poets prize, is a powerful collection of poems driven by panic and obsession. Siken writes with ferocity, and his reader hurtles unstoppably with him. His poetry is confessional, gay, savage, and charged with violent eroticism. In the world of American poetry, Siken's voice is striking. In her introduction to the book, competition judge Louise Glück hails the “cumulative, driving, apocalyptic power, [and] purgatorial recklessness” of Siken’s poems. She notes, “Books of this kind dream big. . . . They restore to poetry that sense of crucial moment and crucial utterance which may indeed be the great genius of the form.” — Goodreads
Check your local bookstore for a new copy (I got mine at Boulder Bookstore), or Thriftbooks or World of Books for used copies.
Film
“Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person,” 2023, is co-written and directed by Ariane Louis-Seize
Sasha is a young vampire with a very serious problem: she’s too sensitive to kill! Frustrated by their daughter’s empathy for humans, Sasha’s parents decide to cut off her blood supply to force her to learn how to hunt… or starve! Just as she decides to reject her vampire instincts and embrace a final death, she meets a lonely teenager named Paul who is willing to give his life to save hers, on the condition that she help to fulfill his final wishes before day breaks.
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With a (seemingly) nod to one of my favorite vampire genre films, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, this film quickly became a must-watch and a last-minute addition to this newsletter after I saw it this past weekend. An online acquaintance mentioned it in an Instagram story, and I saved it, thinking it might be right up my alley.
To my surprise, it turned out to be an absolutely adorable and heartwarming film—a rarity for me, as I usually gravitate towards the weird, the dramatic, and the melancholy. But this film charmed me from start to finish, maintaining a quirky tone with nothing major going wrong. It’s a happy take on a very sad subject (suicide), and the filmmakers did a fantastic job of tackling it in a way that leaves you feeling unexpectedly uplifted.
Also, the soundtrack is solid and available on Spotify. This film is also currently streaming on Kanopy which is a free service provided to many public libraries.
Thank you for this. Esp Humanist and Sophia Jani.