Jesu - Everyday I Get Closer To The Light From Which I Came

Handmade and digitally edited album cover.

JESU is a British experiemental metal band created by Justin Broadrick, a musician known for crafting all variety of heavy, moody brooding in metal bands such as Godflesh and Napalm Death. With Jesu however, he turned towards a decidedly more introspective, shoegazey, slowcore, and sometimes even euphoric sound. Jesu’s album designs all remain minimal, nearly monochromatic, and with small moments of heightened texture (pictured below). In order to create a personal expression of my listening experience, I decided to take a more painterly approach to visually rendering the beautifully grungy and textured music that is uniquely his.

First, I created an abstract oil painting using exclusively gold, silver, and bronze paints that I created by mixing in oil medium with colored gold/silver/bronze mica powder. Then, the painting was photographed and altered in photoshop to heighten the color and texture of the painting. The composition was also altered slightly to appear more symmetrical.

Next, I had the digital image printed on high quality textured paper. I then pricked the print directly with a blade in order to spell out “jesu” through the shredded white of the paper.

Lastly, I photographed the print and began digitally altering it again to maximize the amount of grain, grit, and sense of moody texture.

Concept work for a student project