"Purcogitoresque" – British Library, Euston Road, London, England

David Normal is a San Francisco painter and animator. Born in 1970, he is the son of Paul Butterfield Blues Band keyboardist, Mark Naftalin. Normal’s "Crossroads of Curiosity" is a suite of murals that extends the notion of a "cabinet of curiosity." The traditional cabinet of curiosity is a rectilinear arrangement of objects displayed in glass cases. Normal’s version seeks to encompass the world in a series of dramatic tableaux featuring provocative juxtapositions of vastly different times, places, and peoples. Normal used Victorian Era book illustrations exclusively from the digitized collection of the British Library to create the artwork. Beginning as black and white collages, the four pieces were developed into 8’ x 20’ lightbox murals that were arrayed around a common base.

"Purcogitoresque" is a portmanteau neologism meaning: "In the style of forethought." It is derived from the words "Purgatory," "Percolate," "Cognition" and "Grotesque." Purcogitoresque is perhaps the most personal of the Crossroads series. David Normal personally identifies with the characters in the painting – particularly the artist, a Prince Myshkin like figure, who is seeking for his salvation through his own work. However, the figure of the Sultan who is simultaneously sacred and profane also appeals directly to the artist’s own sensibilities since he finds beauty in the paradoxes and contradictions of human nature. The two dandies reaching out to a jellyfish as though hailing a cab represent Normal’s own predilection for fashion and style, seemingly a pedestrian concern, while being preoccupied with truly otherworldly matters that transcend not only the latest trends, but the very fabric of space and time.