This month ROOTED Cafe is featuring work from Joe Botsch, a Somerville-based illustrator and comic book artist who specializes in the dark and macabre. His work tends to feature ghosts, monsters, and sinister characters, and he is known for expressing plot and story in singular images which invite the viewer to build the narrative in their own minds using the unusual imagery provided. This show features Joe’s recent “Inktober” work: a social media phenomenon that encourages illustrators to make an ink drawing a day, every day for the entire month of October. Joe specializes in a heavy, chiaroscuro inking that seems to sculpt three dimensional forms. The use of black creates an impenetrable darkness that begs the viewer to imagine what else might lurk in the shadows.
Joe’s entire collection of Inktober illustrations can be found on Instagram @donotreadcomics. His comic book work can be found at www.DoNotReadComics.com.
p.s. Joe is also the Operations Manager at Arts at the Armory so feel free to strike up a conversation with him if you stop into ROOTED and consider buying one of his original pieces, which will be on sale through the end of the month.