Touched By The Muses' Madness
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| Mohamad Kraytem, Morning, 2018, page 1 of 4. |
For the sake of creating art, this artist puts his own life at risk going all in or maybe we should say all out, or to be more specific and in the words of Plato, he experiences the "touch of the Muses' madness in his soul".
Since long before Plato we have been discussing what drives the human inspiration. Divine intervention, perhaps, such as from the Muses, while later ages would point to chemical substances such as absinthe or opium, but whatever the reason for hallucinating or passing downright out, the line of thought was each time to explain the ability of the artist to transcend their human frame and create something of value beyond their own time and place.
In the present case the ingredients are the ones presented above: A pen, a cup and some hot liquid to which is added a piece of music.
The liquid is coffee, the music Black Coffee by Black Flag, which if you click the link in the name will take you to the music while seeing the present comic, and the one leading us into hallucinating is Mohamad Kraytem, who created the four-page comic at a workshop at the American University in Beirut earlier this spring.
This would not be Mohamad if he did not take us directly into the impossibility of the turn of the tale. In this case from the enjoyment of beginning a day of work with its chain of preparations to the total eruption as overwhelming to take in as it is to the one acting it all out, before... but, first things first. It is time to brew that coffee and get to drawing:
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| Mohamad Kraytem, Morning, 2018, page 2 of 4. |
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| Mohamad Kraytem, Morning, 2018, page 3 of 4. |
"STAB through my heart..."
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| Mohamad Kraytem, Morning, 2018, page 4 of 4. |
