Steve Fiorilla had a phantasmagoric imagination. His body was not as powerful as his imagination, and at age 48, he died last Wednesday in a Buffalo hospital. Steve's artwork ranged from pen-and-ink drawings to sculpture, but he had no interest in email or computers or creating digital art. Even so, he had a blog. This came about because his friend and sometimes collaborator, Jim McDermott, would upload Steve's drawings to the blog, and then I would write copy to fit, giving the art a narrative framework. Here's a link to Steve's blog, Fee Fie Foe... Fiorilla, featuring images he did over the years, plus a recent work, the Marginals.
The cityscape above these two paragraphs was the only piece he did directly for Fee Fie Foe... Fiorilla. As I began to write about the mythical Fiorillaville, I asked him to supply his vision of it. For a full list of Steve's many credits, see his Wikipedia page. To read his reviews, go to Flickhead, where he wrote under the pseudonym Jacques Corédor. (Get it?) Also on Flickhead, you can read Ray Young's memories of Steve. The Buffalo News ran this obituary.
Mask Maker is a five-minute video by Jon Gawne showing Steve creating a latex mask. (Takes a minute to load.)
In the architectonically askew drawing below, titled "Warphouses," let your eyes do the walking, and you'll soon find yourself lost in the Fiorillaville fog, surrounded by Steve's remarkable, oneiric visions.
Art copyright ©2009 by the Estate of Steve Fiorilla.
Steve was a great artist. I saw a lot of his work on Clay Geerdes' comix, which I contributed to also. He was an inspiration to me. I am very sorry to hear that he died.
ReplyDeleteDavid Miller