Text - Rhodes University

positive shapes, even or especially when the decoration starts as shading to provoke a
three-dimensional illusion, but then takes on a life of its own. The figures appear
embedded in flat space, perhaps because there are no apparent (or consistent) light
sources [fig 2]. Perspective also suffers from an attack of surrealism, with horizontal
perspectives often rendered vertically; faraway objects teeter above foreground ones.
Shadows are used almost in compensation [fig 3]; less to indicate form and light than to
indicate space, and often perspective as well. Scale means very little in tenns of spa
Figure 3 Angel? p5 Issue 1
A strongly narrative text means that much of the mood is described through the drawings.
Were the verbal description to be complete, the drawings would do no more than
illustrate. Here, however, the artist can elaborate the drawings, while illustrating or
narrating the text; in the same way as humour is largely contained in little asides and
footnotes and details, so is mood described visually in seemingly irrelevant details.
The unity between writing and drawing echoes the hermeticism of Morai's production;
the artist has chosen his influences and thus his style, and works within these. No other
influences distract him, for the time being, leaving him to refine rather than expand.
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