Work samples
About Britt
Baltimore City
Britt Law is a visual artist/illustrator who uses traditional mediums to craft images that are simultaneously whimsical and macabre. Colorful characters, frequently subverting traditional gender roles and representation, exist in backdrops from various time periods to create a modern fairy-tale like atmosphere. They have had works shown at the Corcoran Gallery, Area 405, Connor Contemporary Art, Tectonic Space, Always April Gallery, and Reverb.
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Recent Works (2017 - 2021)
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Anatole (Preserved Spectre)2019, sculpey, acrylic paint, velvet and satin in customized antique bell jar, 16“x9”x9”
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Barbette (rose gold satin champagne)Barbette (rose gold satin champagne) 2020, watercolor, acrylic & white charcoal on paper in frame, 22”x14”
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Conrad Veidt (film star & anti-nazi proponent)2019, watercolor, acrylic & white charcoal on paper in frame, 32”x23”
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Hapless Stroll Through a Liminal Space2021; watercolor and white carcoal on paper, 14"x17"
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The Arachnids2017; pen, watercolor & acrylic on paper, 17"x14"
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The Blood Sacrifice2017; pen & watercolor, 11.5”x9”
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The Upstairs Room (Robert Smith)2017; pen, watercolor & acrylic on paper, 14”x17”
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Saint Sebastian2018; pen & watercolor on paper, 17"x14"
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Rude Boy2017; pen & watercolor on paper in custom marbled frame, 8.5“x6.5”
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Pygmy Seahorses2017; pen & watercolor on paper in custom marbled frame, 8.5“x6.5”
Works (2012 - 2016)
Various pieces that I've done throughout the years.
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Birds of Prey2016 (pen, pencil, watercolor & acrylic on paper)
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The Inducement2015 (pen, watercolor, acrylic & white charcoal on toned paper)
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The Oracle2015 (pen, pencil & acrylic on toned paper)
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Dionysus Leading Maenads2014 (pen, watercolor & marker on paper)
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The Musicians2014 (pen, watercolor, acrylic & white charcoal on paper)
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Interlude2016 (Pen, pencil & watercolor on paper)
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Decomposition2014; pen & pencil on paper combined digitally
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Composition2014; pen & pencil on paper combined digitally
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Amaurosis2014; pen, graphite and colored pencil on paper, 20"x11"
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The Entrapment2012 (pen & pencil on paper)
Distinct Anatomies (2012)
Senior thesis show for my undergraduate fine art degree at the Corcoran College of Art and Design in 2012.
Artist statement:
"Mortality weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep." -- John Keats, 1817
Process and materials are an important part of my work. I am attracted to the universal and timeless quality of pencil and paper. The act of drawing becomes a rumination of the subject depicted. It is a sacred practice, a ritual, a ceremony. Like the rise of Romanticism during the Industrial Revolution, I use traditional materials and techniques to create fantastical images with no relation to our technology filled, digital, throwaway culture.
With my work I strive to create an inherent narrative through static scenes. My drawings function as fragments of a more intricate, unknown narrative. I utilize elements of fantasy, the supernatural and historical references to create dystopian, mildly unsettling and voyeuristic images.
Distinct Anatomies is a series of seven pen and pencil illustrations. Hung salon style and framed in satin, they evoke the romance and atmosphere of Decadence and Aestheticism. The satin wainscotting and patterned wallpaper also reinforces this frame of mind for the viewer to experience the work. Additionally, roses, peacocks, parasols, period fashion, and interior decor represented in the drawings themselves allude to this time frame.
The subject of this series is death in its various fashions. Whether an embalming ceremony, a funeral, a seance, an autopsy or merely represented by a skeleton, death is at the core. Even the living stand as a symbol for their future selves. The figures in my work are marked by a certain fragility. Wan and androgynous, they are imbued with an acute sense of vulnerability; of being susceptible to harm. Eyes closed, they are at the mercy of uncontrollable forces. Their gaze never confronts the viewer or even their current surroundings. The inherent helplessness and unawareness of the figures also enforces the position of viewer as voyeur.
While the subjects of the drawings may be slightly grim, they are not works of horror. I do not attempt to shock the viewer with images of the grotesque or realistic depictions of death. The images are an idealized, fetishized version of death that is at once morbid and aesthetically pleasing, like a suicuide concerned with leaving behind a pretty corpse.
Artist statement:
"Mortality weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep." -- John Keats, 1817
Process and materials are an important part of my work. I am attracted to the universal and timeless quality of pencil and paper. The act of drawing becomes a rumination of the subject depicted. It is a sacred practice, a ritual, a ceremony. Like the rise of Romanticism during the Industrial Revolution, I use traditional materials and techniques to create fantastical images with no relation to our technology filled, digital, throwaway culture.
With my work I strive to create an inherent narrative through static scenes. My drawings function as fragments of a more intricate, unknown narrative. I utilize elements of fantasy, the supernatural and historical references to create dystopian, mildly unsettling and voyeuristic images.
Distinct Anatomies is a series of seven pen and pencil illustrations. Hung salon style and framed in satin, they evoke the romance and atmosphere of Decadence and Aestheticism. The satin wainscotting and patterned wallpaper also reinforces this frame of mind for the viewer to experience the work. Additionally, roses, peacocks, parasols, period fashion, and interior decor represented in the drawings themselves allude to this time frame.
The subject of this series is death in its various fashions. Whether an embalming ceremony, a funeral, a seance, an autopsy or merely represented by a skeleton, death is at the core. Even the living stand as a symbol for their future selves. The figures in my work are marked by a certain fragility. Wan and androgynous, they are imbued with an acute sense of vulnerability; of being susceptible to harm. Eyes closed, they are at the mercy of uncontrollable forces. Their gaze never confronts the viewer or even their current surroundings. The inherent helplessness and unawareness of the figures also enforces the position of viewer as voyeur.
While the subjects of the drawings may be slightly grim, they are not works of horror. I do not attempt to shock the viewer with images of the grotesque or realistic depictions of death. The images are an idealized, fetishized version of death that is at once morbid and aesthetically pleasing, like a suicuide concerned with leaving behind a pretty corpse.
Dreadful Nothings
Dreadful Nothings is a collection of occasionally humorous musings on the mundane terrors of existence. The series began in 2017 as the artist's attempt to create work slightly more frequently during periods of depression. Each comic was completed within a day or so of starting.
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Logo
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Comic 1[ID: A hand drawn comic featuring the image of a bipedal skeleton creature comprising a deer skull with antlers, a human skeleton torso and hands but with hooves, wearing a black cloak. To the right is an image of two human skeletons sleeping in a bed together but facing opposite directions. At the bottom of the page is a small grave. The text reads, We suffer at the hands of a wicked faceless entity. We are terribly lonely in the presence of each other. We long to be drunk on the fruits and pleasures of youth but instead we bury each other.]
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Comic 2[ID: A comic featuring a hairless cat sleeping, expressing emotions and falling off of a table. The text reads, In a past life I was a cat. Despite my current form, there's still hours of sleep in double digits. Strange contrary temperaments, like I love you! Don't fucking look at me! A collection of bird bones and small rodents. And when I do something horrifically embarrassing... It never happened. You saw nothing.]
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Comic 3[ID: A hand drawn comic entitled Demons, featuring a green horned winged demon running a race, bearing a torch approaching a building labeled Sallie Mae HQ, kissing a human person, rocking a cradle with a demon humanesque baby and dramatically crying over an urn. The text reads, Exercise your demons. Train them well. Bend them to your will. Sic them on your enemies! Make sweet love to your demon. Have a hybrid demon human baby. Become disillusioned with domestic life and childrearing. Leave your demon. Die alone ten years later]
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Comic 4[ID: A hand drawn comic entitled Rimbaud Says featuring the image of French Symbolist poet Arthur Rimbaud wearing a bright blue suit jacket with text reading, Insufferable imagination. Just write words to become invisible, to ignore the outside world. Instead beckon tendrils of smoke from the extinguished embers of incense from dilapidated houses crumbling under the heavy burden of the years. Of floorboards bowing beneath the footsteps of inhabitants, of hauntings present and past, beyond the grave and the cosmos and travelling to the underworld to hold your hand and pull you back, to retrieve your flesh and return, reunite again. A modicum of truth clasped to the chest, in the chamber of blood and muscle. The cathedral is draped in shadows and whispers of the unrepentant before the knife is plunged into the flesh, warm and wet, pulsing until extraction. It is a carnal act of clinical execution. Blood flows from the wound.]
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Dreadful Nothings (original comic)[ID: A hand drawn comic with a small drawing of a night sky with a crescent moon bearing a human face in profile with shooting stars in the background. Beneath there is a vampire lounging in an open casket holding a wine glass full of blood. A person wearing a high collared Victorian style dress with a corset vaguely gestures toward a ghost symbol. A pair of hands wearing fingerless lace gloves gently clasped together is the last image. The text reads, Life is too short to spend half of it in old age and the unforseeable future is closer than you think... So just be a vampire. They're fucking cool as fuck! Or perhaps a Victorian ghost. Forever fair and unchanging, shrouded in lace and unfulfilled potential.]