Intergalactic Gallery
| Fan Art | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Intergalactic Gallery |
| Artist: | Caren Parnes |
| Date(s): | 1994 |
| First Published: | |
| Medium: | |
| Genre/Style: | |
| Fandom: | Star Trek: TOS |
| External Links: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Intergalactic Gallery [1] is a set of two art pieces by Caren Parnes.
They portray Kirk and Spock as statues in an art gallery, and as statues coming to life. They are a form of art imitation. The one of Spock is "The Thinker" by Rodin.
The art was printed as the front and back covers of First Time #40 where the editor introduced them: "Well, you saw the cover — so what did you think?? Nice, eh? Yeah. An understatement. Caren Parnes — once again, arms and fingers twisted by this nasty, persistent, pleading, begging, insistent editor. Aren’t you glad I’m such a ..."
Fan Comments
[cover art by Caren P.]: Caren generates some of the most original ideas in K/S art. This pair of drawings is compelling: on the front. Kirk and Spock as statues in an intergalactic art gallery, on the back, the statues coming to life and-of course-getting off their pedestals to kiss. I find K/S "kiss" illustrations to be the most erotic of all. I don't know why; I like the more explicit ones as much as anybody. There's just something about those two kissing .... Caren does a lovely job with these drawings. Among my favorite details are the gorgeous hands on both characters, especially in the "kiss" drawing; Spock's large hand splayed along the back of Kirk's neck and the side of his face, while the Vulcan's left hand presses down on Kirk's bare thigh. I can just feel Kirk moving, pressing up against that hand. And Spock's right leg, pressing between Kirk's thighs! @#$%*&*! Er . . . must be time for a cold shower.Okay, I'm calmer now. I do have a criticism. The artist cleverly takes off on some classic sculptures for these drawings. Spock is appropriately posed as Rodin's Thinker. But in the same drawing, she puts Kirk in the place of The Slave (was that one of Michelangelo's unfinished pieces? Sorry I'm rusty). The problem I have with this juxtaposition is that the two don't fit together. Since she chose a perfect, in-character pose for Spock, she should have done the same for Kirk. The Slave, much as we all love those sexy slave stories, is just not right for Kirk, who is no one's slave. I would have loved to see him as Michelangelo's David, so like Kirk because he stands up to a giant with only his courage and the knowledge that he's on the side of right.
As for technique, I am not an artist, so maybe I'm out of my depth, but I do love the textures she chose for both statues and flesh. Most of the work is so good that I hate to draw attention to the part that bothered me, but Spock's backside and left leg just seem ... wrong; the leg is foreshortened, the buttocks too large and rounded for Spock. This is the only technical problem with an otherwise magnificent pair of pictures, so perhaps that part of the illustration was done at a time when the artist was too tired to go back and perfect it. I have slipped up at the end of a story because of fatigue often enough to understand what that's like.
All in all, the illos are marvelous, a fitting pair of bookends for a really good issue of First Time.[2]
Loved these representations of Kirk and Spock as statues that come to life. Unique and vary imaginative. The Kirk on the back cover was especially good; our captain's assets were perfectly portrayed. These pictures were worth the proverbial thousand words. Now all we need is someone to write them down into a story. [3]