EDITOR’S NOTE: Samuel Araya previously explored his process for illustrating The King in Yellow in “The Darkening of Materials.”
I knew I wanted many different effigies of the King in Yellow character. I didn’t want it to be just symbolic, but also visceral, much like Giger’s Alien or Beksinski paintings. The more diverse interpretations we have, the richer an experience gets. This rather positive underpinning informed much of the darkest imagery I have produced.
Each painting was also the product of many happy accidents. The face you see now started as a smooth surface. I overlaid the alchemical symbol of Mercury, which also represents feminine aspects. I was struggling with how to proceed further when I found an engraving and brief explanation of “The Androgyne” in alchemy. It featured a figure with two faces, one of each sex, merged together in a single body. This converged with classical symbology regarding the image of a king. Kings are usually solar deities, associated with the masculine, but the King in Yellow its alien and stranger in origin. If you look near the vestiges of the Mercury sign in the face, you will notice two faces in profile, facing each other. What is the sex of this? Its nature? An amalgamation? Something in between, a strange threshold beyond our own understanding? Or maybe just a happy accident with texture?
All we know is that it wears no mask.
Samuel Araya
Asuncion, 2018
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