(version_industries) and Caspar Newbolt also go the painted route for Family Portrait (limited, June 28), but from a wholly different angle. Rather than create something from scratch, they have gone back in time to reappropriate an old master painting: Joshua Johnson’s The Westwood Children. That canvas becomes the source of these three sets of eyes, cutout and repositioned for the shift from landscape to portrait as their bodies become lost within the void of a highly textured field of muddied color.
It’s a memorable piece that alludes to the film’s disappearance of a character while trying to take a photo of the group. There’s mystery in that absence of form and horror in the fact that these eyes stare at us unperturbed, as though they know what happened and might in fact be the cause. And there’s a symbolic read of Shakespeare’s quote that “the eyes are a window to our soul” included as well. What more do we need to immortalize ourselves than them?
thank you to jared and the film stage for their continued appreciation and support of out work.
posteritatiand the film stage have kindly included our joyland and falcon lake posters in their best movie posters of 2023 lists. the film stage went as far as to consider our poster for saim sadiq’s joyland their number 1 poster of the year.
here’s what jared mobarek at the film stage had to say about the joyland poster:
There’s so much to talk about with (version_industries) and Caspar Newbolt’s Joyland. The ornately hand-drawn floor tiles (their website always generously explains their process) doubling as a window upon the main characters. The whole’s off-center nature pushing everything into the top-left corner to provide room for text on the outside without sterilizing the composition via more symmetry. The way the three actors feel as though they exist in one scene despite a handful of lotus flowers overlapping their images to prove each has been meticulously layered atop the others. The grain, subdued colors, and blood-smeared title. It’s truly a work of art all its own and a testament to the field’s ability to sell itself as much as the product being sold.
a huge thank you to both institutions for their continued support of our work.
“Caspar Newbolt and (version_industries) traverse an inspired path to give frequent collaborator Tim Sutton’s film Funny Face a printed counterpart. The subject is a revenge-seeking man who serendipitously discovers a plastic mask, donned more as a talisman of confidence than means of anonymity. Was its appearance fate? Has this surreal shield served others before him? Newbolt looks to amplify that potential by delving back through history to discover another artistic work with empowered figures perfectly suited to become this character’s progenitors. His selection of Caravaggio’s Salome with the Head of John the Baptist proves a magnificent partner both thematically and tonally. You want to laugh, but it’s all too sinister to risk the ensuing wrath. For all you know, that face might just find you next… already affixed to another’s head.”
thank you jared and everyone at the film stage for this vote of confidence.
Caspar Newbolt and (version_industries) take that sense of barrier through line work one step further to create a piece for Stray Dolls like only they can: dark, evocative, and eccentrically off-kilter in an almost discomforting way. Our vision is in constant flux like an optical illusion, shifting back and forth between the woman looking down on the page and the woman on the phone behind it. There’s a sense of before and after … or perhaps lost and found when you bring in the title. The red hue supplies connotations of danger that the cool blues beneath—via depth (the second face) and direction (the text)—contrast less with the promise of safety than the allure of mystery.
thank you jared and everyone at the film stage for this vote of confidence.
