Slideshow: Christine Neulieb’s Spirits & Beasties
by Sam Abrams
Writer/artist Christine Neulieb is always inventing new monsters on her Spirits & Beasties site.
They can fantastical:
Moonscrake: Red-eyed nightbird of the boreal forests, with opalescent plumage that glows in the twilight. Solitary; its unearthly “double” song (melody and harmony together) is fatal to human trespassers.
And funny:
Twilph: A little troll native to the northeastern United States, the twilph loves to hang out in neighborhoods where it’s not wanted. One day it’s strolling down your sidewalk sipping a pumpkin spice latte. The next it’s marking off vacant lots, laying spells and hexes of powerful magic that will cause condos to appear overnight. Before you know it, it’s using Nextdoor to gossip about you behind your back and then it’s installed itself permanently on the corner, running a cafe that only serves quinoa and $8 lattes.
And scary, and weird, and beautiful. They can also be hard to picture in your mind’s eye. Which brings us to the “Spirits & Beasties: An Extravaganza of Monsters” — a group art show opening Friday, April 1, at Indy Hall. A long list of artists, working in multiple media, have created two- and three-dimensional versions of Neulieb’s unnatural abominations.
Check out the slideshow below.
