CUZOR

STEVE CUZOR HENRY FLEMING'S BATTLE Dupuis 2024 Original plate no. 8. Signed. India ink and white gouache on paper 48 × 62 cm (18.9 × 24.41 in.) We are at the beginning of the album. Henry has not yet seen the enemy, but his fight has already begun. It's a bitter, dull struggle against himself, against the shadow he feels growing and distilling in him an incessant doubt. The phylactery in the last panel shows him speaking aloud to himself, as if to drown out the inner voice. But it's too late. He'll be going up in flames with it. In this very solitary panel, suspended between two longer sequences, the text is of prime importance. We have to be able to understand that this is it, Henry is in trouble. We have to get close to him, to hear the storm under his skull. Graphically, lighting is everything. Henry has no expression, but thanks to the play of light and shadow, we can see that his soul is split in two. S.C.