Robbi was working on a magazine commission over the weekend, doing a series of illustrations for an article about education, which meant that she had to draw encouraging, uplifting images of children. Those of you who know Robbi’s style are aware that she likes to draw the dark and twisted side of things, slaying her subjects with a sidelong slash of her critical pen. But when drawing encouraging, uplifting images of children, one’s critical leash is fairly short. Over the course of the weekend, a tremendous backlog of dark, unsettling thoughts and inclinations built up within Robbi, and at one point she pulled out a piece of paper and sketched this drawing.
You might argue that this is a dark, troubling image, and I’m not sure I’d be able to refute you. But I choose to think of this illustration as a canny metaphor for man’s struggle against his spiritual abyss, our insistence on maintaining a dark and lonely empty space inside ourselves in spite of all the cheerful, positive things (like ground squirrels, for example) that might come along to fill it.
Here’s a perfect foil to those of you (who, like myself) can’t stand the sight of cute and fluffy animals. If you find yourself more intrigued than put off, click here to bid.
