scraperboard /scratchboard art by Merzi de Bris
Artist Merzi de Bris and the writer Knut Sackvoll have come together once again in a fitting coupling of their individual talents.
Sackvoll’s publishers – Second Banana Manuals – were looking for a suitable artwork to illustrate the cover of his latest book, SELFIES: Make them better with this handy guide to the best digital manipulation techniques.
The decision to use the work of de Bris was inevitable. Her critically-acclaimed and highly appropriate scraperboard images had just been on show in a solo exhibition titled, “I thought Farting was a city in China”. One of the many excited visitors to the show had been Second Banana’s art director, Julian Gazebos.
The works displayed included her subversive interpretation of the eternal dilemma of pain or pleasure in so-called self-abuse: “Constellation of Venus: Knocking one out”.
Gazebos had no difficulty in coming to a decision over what to put on the cover of Sackvoll’s book. “I had accepted the invitation to a private view of Merzi’s opening because I just knew that what she was showing would be thrilling. ‘Knocking one out’ satisfied my needs completely,” he said.
