Carol Wianio: The Book

Drawing on rich and varied sources as 19th-century French illustrator J.J. Grandville and folktales such as Puss in Boots, Wainio explores the narrative power of fairy tale illustrations. Her paintings however evoke a mood of disenchantment and loss rather than wonder. The subjects of the traditional European folktale - poverty and excess, high culture and low, desire and consumption, camouflage and forms of recognition or status through representation or dress - become commentaries on today's global consumerist society and its inequities. Thoroughly illustrated and with two original essays, this publication documents a ten-year survey.