Pieter Bruegel the Elder
“Pieter Bruegel the Elder” detail, for @afonso_serro_offcial ••••••••in @flourishandblotts.studio , Lisbon•••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Pieter Bruegel the Elder drew monsters. Not the kind from horror stories, but the kind that linger somewhere between the real and the imagined. They show up in his drawings with strange limbs, twisted faces, and bodies that don’t quite make sense. At first, they’re just odd. But the more you look, the more they feel familiar—like they’re saying something about us. Bruegel pulled from folklore, from myth, from whatever lived at the edges of what people believed. His monsters weren’t just decoration. They held up a mirror. I’ve drawn a lot of details from his paintings and drawings over the years. But the one I’m showing here might be my favorite. I tattooed it in Lisbon, at Flourish Studio—a space that doesn’t exist anymore, but still feels present through the work that came out of it. These figures, strange as they are, feel honest. And in their exaggeration, there’s something true. That’s what keeps me coming back.