American artist Sylvia Ji’s haunting, seductive and psychedelically tinged portrayals of women offer a whole new slant on femininity, and blur the line between high- and lowbrow art. Her subjects are symbolic reflections of herself, and people she knows, or just nameless faces set in a landscape of fleeting and decaying beauty. The dominant influence in Sylvia’s work is La Calavera Catrina, the iconic skeleton dame of Mexico’s Day of the Dead celebrations, and her macabre, yet glamorous, take on the Sugar Skull tradition. This intermingles with gorgeously colourful images of exotic empresses, Native American tribeswomen, and Baroque beauties. This retrospective monograph offers a lavish overview of an artist who draws inspiration from life and death to create highly charged and darkly exotic work.
