Synopsis
A collection of thirty-three paintings, each of which challenges the viewer to find something wrong.
Publishers Weekly
This gallery of surreal images by Billout (Number 24) does not follow any narrative. Instead, each high-definition graphic presents an independent scene from nature or a sharp architectural rendering in which "something's not quite right." A page labeled "Dune" pictures a smooth white mountain against a blue sky; a person in robes climbs one side, suggesting desert sand, while a figure in a parka climbs the other, suggesting drifted snow. In "Secession," Billout neatly bisects all the bridges that cross the Seine River, allowing Paris's Ile de la Cit to float free; in "Skyscraper," he pictures a pointy steeple scratching a blue line across the face of the full moon. New York's Flatiron Building features in two panels, forcing its way through a snowy crust ("Ice Age") and poised on the brink of a sand-colored abyss where Broadway and Fifth Avenue used to intersect ("Canyon"). Billout's dark humor comes through in images like "Probabilities," which pictures a zebra whose stripes form a bull's-eye pattern and, in the foreground, the silhouette of a hunter and a rifle's barrel; he has a more whimsical touch in "Attack," which pictures a military general's statue, a solitary pedestrian recoiling in shock, and a snowball which seems to have come out of nowhere. Billout illustrates for the Atlantic Monthly, and it is easy to imagine these puzzling stand-alone images as magazine covers; admirers of Magritte or Istvan Banyai will want to take a look. All ages. (Dec.) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.