The Wrong Place
I discovered the art of Brecht Evens while doing painting reference research, and became obsessed. He is a watercolor God. I began thinking in whole new ways after absorbing his work. The Wrong Place is the first book I picked up, and I carried it around like a bible for a couple months.
The story is also quite wonderful. It follows Gary, an awkward guy trying to host a fun party. Everyone is bored. It turns out they only attended to encounter Robbie - a dear friend and polar opposite of Gary. Robbie mesmerizes men and women alike with his magical charisma. Gary's party quickly dies once people realize Robbie is a no show. He mostly can be found at Disco Harem - an exciting nightclub where anything can happen.
Lulu is at Disco Harem that night, failing at social interaction. Robbie emerges from a plant, kisses her by mistake, and then takes her on a night she'll never forget, traveling all the secret floors of the nightclub.
Gary eventually makes it to the club himself, and even when Robbie tries to include him in the fun, it just doesn't work. He stays a washed-out pale gray in stark contrast to the colorful crowds.
The way Evens handles dark busy scenes with large crowds is inspiring. You can look through foreground layers to the background landscapes. Furniture, walls and people are unfinished yet make visual sense. He moves from minimalism to chaotic maximums easily, depicting the same characters slightly differently from scene to scene - but they are identifiable. The words they speak match the coloration as their bodies, creating order but allowing atmospheric confusion as they overlap with other speakers words. I'm not even sure he does pencil drawings as preliminary sketches - the color looks so pure on the page. Even at their loosest, the paintings give off the sense of being highly controlled, laid down by a confident hand. I marvel at the sureness that comes from hours and hours and hours of practice, and use this book as inspiration to keep painting, keep practicing.
