Most know Tim Burton as the creepy-but-enticing movie director. His movies are easily recognizable: dark, moody and original, involving weird characters and catchy but slightly disturbing musical numbers.
Take, for example, The Nightmare Before Christmas. The entire movie seems to take place at night. And the best known musical number, “This is Halloween” has the second lyric line of “Wouldn’t you like to see something strange?”
This theme repeats itself consistently throughout each of his movies.
And it also repeats itself through his recently revealed extensive art collection at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan.
Slate.com posted a slideshow of various pieces from the collection.
His artwork, like his movies, is a peek into Tim Burton’s creative head. Or at least what I would imagine his head to be.
It’s creepy. His artwork is mostly monsters, illustrations of everyday issues or dilemmas.
Mothera, for example, is an exaggeration of the everyday mom. This monster is larger, with curlers tangled in hair on top of a blob head, with a combination of baby monsters and cleaning equipment dangling from each of her tentacles.
Looking through the collection, it’s not hard to imagine where he got the inspiration for each piece. The majority seems to be random sketches, probably not meant for organized presentation.
“I never really considered it art or art work,” Burton confesses nonchalantly in a short film clip MoMA put out, “mainly because it was not meant to be seen.”
Despite this, his drawing and sketches are fascinating.
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