MALLEUS: ‘Dark Nouveau’ Stile Liberty serigraphs by trio of Italian artists (the relatively tame stuff)

September 27, 2010

MALLEUS: MEI 2003

Here is a very select group of the tamer of the images produced by this Italian trio of young male artists who simply call themselves Poia, Lu and Urlo, or MALLEUS, and who work in the Stile Liberty tradition of silkscreened poster graphics.

I first became aware of this body of work while visiting San Francisco, California last October with my dear wife Dawn.

While browsing in a head shop on Haight Street, I noticed an invitation card for an art show called ‘DARK NOUVEAU’ at the Varnish Fine Arts Gallery on Natoma street, basically an alley downtown in the City’s financial district.

They were showing some of their limited edition serigraphs at Varnish with the Firehouse group of East Bay artists, Chuck Sperry, Dave Hunter and Ron Donovan.

MALLEUS: MEI 2006 FAENZA

That show opened my eyes to the fact that there is certainly a revival of psychedelic Art Nouveau-influenced new posters coming out of the Bay Area and Italy.

MALLEUS: MEI 2007 FAENZA

It should be noted that I am not endorsing the spirituality of these men, as often the imagery they produce is frankly Satanic (or bordering on being Satanic), but sometimes they manage to produce work that stays just this side of the line, so to speak, and therefor I have carefully chosen the least offensive of their oeuvre.

MALLEUS: MEI 2009 FAENZA

Christian or deeply aesthetically conservative readers are forewarned, however, not to visit their website if they are already offended by what I have shown here.

Notwithstanding the mistakes they seem to making in terms of promoting Satanism (which I certainly do not recommend), the graphic work they produce is often indubitably of a very high calibre.

MALLEUS: MEI 2004 FAENZA

Their familiarity with the human form, particularly nude women’s bodies, is remarkable.

But there is definitely something very creepy about all the blood, sexism and pagan fatalism in the worst of this dark work.

‘The tamer stuff,’ as I call it, stands on its own, however, as examples of some of the best poster design being produced in this Stile Liberty (Italian Art Nouveau) tradition anywhere right now.

The link to the Malleus Rock Art Lab is found in the comments section below.

- ‘Goyo de la Rosa’