The Zone - A Study of the Art of Solios
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
In few bodies of work can be seen the importance of shamelessness, as well as the power of discipline, as clearly as in the erotic/fantasy art of the remarkable artist known as Solios to his large niche following on the internet.
His signature style of drawing Rubenesque beast-women, often augmented with chimerical and fantastic bodilly attributes demonstrate an active imagination, and an eye for the erotic which has always challenged the traditional, and some would say, stagnant and predicatable, vogue of femenine beauty: the inevitable formula of erotica of 36"-28"-36", or else the unhealthilly emaciated "waifs" of the pages of fashion magazines. On this monotonous and uniform landscape of traditionally depicted female images, the work of Solios stands out, finding beauty in the non-traditionally-celebrated phases of womanhood - in robust health, even huskiness, and in the advanced and ripe later stages of pregnancy.
In these two images can be seen the early stages of the artist's experimentation with this new erotic aesthetic. In the first image, we see a very young artist and very young man, still somewhat ashamed of the his own unique vision of beauty. In the second image, some of his latest work, however, we find superior craftsmanship, a delicacy of skin tone, as well as the confident line of a more mature illustrator, unabashedly proud of his fringe tastes.
His timidness of style in the first image speaks of a time when the majority of boys and men around him considered finding 'the fat chicks' desirable as absurd, or at best willing settle for a second class. Casting off these attitudes as having nothing to do with his own unique tastes, Solios refused in his art to be forced into the dogmatic expectations of the world around him. A Thelemite audience can only smile at his willinginess to persevere in a body of work celebrating a Vision of Beauty uniquely his own - and although not to everyone's tastes, a body of work which has found a welcome fanbase on the internet... where, we are finding, every variation of mankind in the broad Body of Nuit can find others of like mind to share insights other than those of the majority.
In these pencil sketches, we can easilly see an artist having entered "the Zone", that mysterious and desirable stage when hard work has paid off in proficiency approaching mastery, when strokes of genius can occur, and which the amateur, the hack -- and the illustrator who cannot or will not approach his craft with a heart burning with love for what he or she does -- can only dream of. In "the Zone", an artist moves with courage and confidence, and the dancer soon gets lost in the dance...
Solios is also quite capable of wielding the most powerful technologies to beget his images, as we see in these two samples (the second one, an album cover for a band, executed as a favor).
All fine work, and a testament for us all of the power of perseverence, in works of Art as in the Great Work itself. Keep the great work coming, Solios!
Love is the law,love under will.
