Dante’s Bubble
Virgil and Dante share a protective bubble facing Chaos in the altered Gustave Doré illustrations by artist, Sandra Jo Martinez. Deemed too dark to contemplate pre-covid, the gifted, 1800’s Dante's Inferno manuscript proved prescient.
Often using book pages and antique manuscripts as her blank canvas, Dante’s Inferno marks the first time the artist worked over illustrations instead of text.
My process is meditative and explores automatic drawing and writing as a vehicle for spiritual focus.
What begins as stream of consciousness content transitions into layers of ink, ash, dirt and acrylic washes that reveal human, plant, and shelter forms.
Sandra Jo’s symbolist works on paper are intuitive and meditative. Taking inspiration from surrealists, her process begins with loose contour drawings that can be read as abstracted human, plant, and shelter forms.
