What I love more than anything else about Clive Barker’s artwork is that you can find links between the artworks. Cry (i) was created in 1977 when Barker was involved in writing and directing plays with The Dog Company. It is a stunning mixed media piece on paper that Barker’s Father brought home for his son from work.
Cry (i) speaks to you as the truly dark man screams out with a red mouth which that suggests pain and suffering. In the first version the red also suggests the sensitivity nipples and the throat or voice box. The background is a sea of blood red and the shy is very much a form of darkness. Two black poles head into the sky and meet black clouds as two beams come down from the sky to reach the figure that is crying out at you the viewer.
Cry (ii) is clearly the same figure thirty years on. The colour that Clive Barker has added has given the figure more detail but I feel his pain is exactly the same. This makes the link between the two works hugely important.
I both works it is the red against the black that makes the viewer feel pain, or even sorrow for the character. It is interesting that Barker chooses to call the work ‘Cry’ and not scream. Cry gives a sadness and gives the character a tragic feeling or a sense that something terrible is wrong with the world that the dark man lives within.
At the same time as the dark figure cries there is a beauty that speaks out from both works and there is a power that the thirty year journey still takes the viewer on.
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