Art of Horror: Entering the Grendel's Den...

Sunday, June 21, 2009 01:23 AM Ben Smith Fangoria Lifestyle

In the realms of horror and macabre art, several artists find it very difficult to evoke fear out of their viewers. As noted on his website, artist D.E. Christman “…is an artist that simply wants to scare the hell out of you…” and Christman certainly does so. With his slimy paws in several different areas of art production, Christman runs the coveted design studio, Grendel’s Den. As noted on Grendel’s Den, they are a design studio that offers web design and development, graphic and print design, logo and branding development, media packaging design, and custom art and illustration; all in the name of horror!

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Created by horror mastermind, D.E. Christman, Grendel’s Den was developed over a decade ago, when Christman began his love for art. With beautiful imagery, some a combination of tangible objects and computer-generated imagery, Christman’s art is reminiscent of Cliver Barker’s nightmarish, other dimension landscapes, having a very H. P. Lovecraftian tone. With many of the art pieces, featuring photographs of models, transfigured via computer, I immediately feel an uneasiness as I view his work. With imagery of distorted teeth coming out of a hand in SINISTER URGE, a simple stairwell with a monster lurking nearby with PICKMAN’S MODEL and even the brilliance of a devilish smiling grin emoting from a pregnant woman’s stomach, in an x-ray styled portrait entitled BIRTH, I feel very disturbed and down right creeped out.

Due to the visual horrific style of his work, Christman notes in a recent interview with Fango, when asked what horror films influenced his work he notes, “"Hellraiser", "The Devil's Backbone" and "Angel Heart". But that's a really short list. Being a visual person, film, just like art, gives me a lot of inspiration to work with.”

Besides the true ingenious of his work at Grendel’s Den, Christman also is a musician in the Philadelphia area. Going under the club DJ name of Dave Ghoul, Christman never disappoints his Philadelphia horror brethren by also being the mastermind behind the b-movie styled Philadelphia zombie events posters that I notice all around the Philly city area. Being the co-founder of Philly Zombie Crawl and Philly Zombie Prom, Christman also is extensively creative in the other fields of horror by being the Art Show Assistant for the HorrorFind Weekend Art Show and the Prepress and Graphics Manager for Dancing Ferret Entertainment. Christman also is a noted “Zombie Expert” in the Philadelphia area, as Grendel’s Den states, “regarded as one of Philadelphia's premier zombie experts, having given various interviews and lectures regarding his knowledge of both the Living Dead and the famous Voodoo curse.”

So Fango readers I urge you to check out the brilliance of D.E. Christman’s work over at Grendel’s Den and be sure to keep on a lookout for Fango’s report of D.E. Christman’s co-founded 1st annual Zombie Beach Party on Sunday, June 21st at the Trocadero Theatre in Philadelphia.