David Bowie - Aladdin Sane (Linocut Print)

My interpretation of Mr David Bowie as his most iconic alter ego, Aladdin Sane.

'Aladdin Sane' was Bowie's sixth album, released in 1973 as a follow-up to his groundbreaking 1972 album, 'The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders from Mars'. It continued the story of Ziggy Stardust; Aladdin Sane was a pun on "A Lad Insane", whom Bowie described as "Ziggy Stardust goes to America".

The iconic album cover on which I have based my print was shot by photographer Brian Duffy, and featured a lightning bolt across Bowie's face. At the time, it was the most expensive cover artwork ever produced, and the image represented the split personality of the Aladdin Sane character as well as Bowie's mixed feelings of the tour and stardom.

This is a multiblock linocut print, with the blue part of the lightning bolt painted in by hand. It was, therefore, particularly time consuming to make, and involved a lot of wastage in terms of prints that didn't pass my own quality control! But it also means that each print will have its own slight variation which is, after all, the beauty of handmade items.

Each copy is hand pressed onto beautiful Awagami Washi Kitakata 36gsm handmade Japanese paper, which has a wonderful warmth to it.