Sylvia Ji's haunting, seductive and psychedelically tinged portrayals of
women offer a whole new slant on femininity, and blur the line between
high- and lowbrow art. Ji says that her subjects are symbolic
reflections of herself and people she knows, or just nameless faces set
in a landscape of fleeting and decaying beauty. The dominant influence
in her work is La Calavera Catrina, the iconic skeleton dame of Mexico's
Day of the Dead celebrations, and her macabre, grotesque, yet glamorous
take on the Sugar Skull tradition intermingles with gorgeously colorful
images of elegant empresses, Native American tribeswomen, and Baroque
beauties. This retrospective monograph offers a lavish overview of an
artist who draws inspiration from life and death to create highly
charged and darkly exotic work.