Inscribing the Devil Fish
It glares, venom-eyed, from a yellowed page. Like a Rorschach test inkblot, it ripples trickily, gathering associations and uncertainties. This is a very good sketch of a very resentful octopus, glowering from seemingly lowered brows. The artist has allowed it to flow with its medium; the animal melts into patches of different opacities: watery shade and thick ink-cloud shadow. He has captured the way its twisting limbs almost find right angles in their unpredictable directionality, and into their roving tips he has spun the letter V above the letter H, like an initialled bullet, or a death sentence left dripping on the wall. Did Victor Hugo intend to show himself hit-listed by the animal of his nightmares?
By Fiona Glen.