Apocalypse Culture Tarot...

Some images from the Apocalypse Culture Tarot deck I'm working on. Been a multi-year, therapeutic endeavor. Still not complete, don't know if it ever will be, but it's a fun distraction.... From my notes about the origins of this deck (circa Dec. 1998):

Inspiration for the Apocalypse Culture Tarot deck comes from living in North American culture at a time when, approaching the new millennium, we seem more than ever obsessed with death. 

This, combined with my affinity towards things of the dark nature or unknown, and my curiosity with the Tarot in general, I thought why not set about learning Adobe Photoshop by creating my own personalized Tarot deck. 

For the artwork I either created an image from scratch or simply appropriated one what I needed from public sources and combined those images into collages or an individual image. The Apocalypse Culture Tarot deck was brought to life on December 11, 1998 with the creation of the first card, which was Death of course.

Key 13 Death - the image used here is titled Stickman & Amiryllus by Toronto artist Mark Adair. This is part of a larger coffin piece of Mark's titled Chaise Longue. The beautifully rendered repulsiveness of a brutal skeletal rape / death scene presented itself as the only logical philosophical / aesthetic choice for this, the most misunderstood card of the Tarot deck.

Key 6 The Lovers - The main image used was of a painting found on the Internet. A man, a woman and a skeleton. There is an embrace, dependence, need and helplessness in the figures. Much like the experience of real lovers. The sense of helplessness seemed to fit the overall mood or theme of the deck.

More to come later....

For the Geeks....from 1998 to present all digital work done with the following:

Apple 300Mhz G3 iBook (clamshell)

Apple 700Mhz G3 iBook (white)

Apple 12" 867Mhz G4 Powerbook

Apple 12" 1.5Ghz G4 Powerbook

Apple dual 2Ghz G5 desktop

Adobe Photoshop 6 thru CS3

Canon A85 4.0 megapixel digital camera