Heartless ladies riding bunnies through space, mermaids riding polar bears, and an assortment of other fantastical images are the content of Tara McPherson’s newest volume of her art work. It has been three years since her last art book publication and it has well been worth the wait. Hitch a ride on your favorite animal and flip through the pages of this gorgeously engaging debut of images.

Within the pages of ‘Bunny in the Moon’ are sketches, paintings, posters, and sculpture. It is a fascinating journey to see McPherson’s creative process from extremely rough pencil sketches to a well-put together concept to the final painting that transports viewers to another world and incites emotions from the very core of each piece.

The paintings included in this volume will astound you with their detail. Every highlight created on the satiny costume of a black playboy bunny costume is so accurate that viewers may feel as if they could just run their fingers across the page and feel the cold smoothness of the fabric.

One must not forget the series of “Trance” paintings that portray a different woman, each with a particular flower around the eye. The eyes in these pieces seem to stare into an onlooker’s soul and keep them in a sort of trance as they stare fixedly at the painting and its beautiful subject.

Eyes seem to be a theme within McPherson’s third installment of her art books. Not only are they seen as the basis of the “Trance” series, but they can be found embedded in her sculptural work as well as in various objects throughout most of her paintings. In a few of them the women, who are central in the piece, are the ones whose eyes grab a viewer before anything else.

At times it is the viewer whose eyes cannot keep themselves from the pages, but in some cases it is as if the women in the painting are the ones who come out of their watery depths and become entranced by the ones looking at them with such intensity and curiosity.

The artwork in this collection definitely deserves a 4.5 because it is far from boring and definitely does not lack the potential to keep a viewer interested and wanting to keep flipping pages. Once at the end, readers will be disappointed there is not more to look at, but fear not, because it ends with a variety of photos from avid fans of McPherson’s work that will make some readers nostalgic.

However, although the artwork can be enjoyed on its own as it is presented here, it may have been an enjoyable experience to hear more from the artist herself about her opinions and experiences with particular pieces. Also, a little more information on the events where the posters were used would have given readers a better context of the wide range of events McPherson’s art has been able to influence. This leaves me to give the textual/informational bits of the book a grade of 2.

Overall rating: 3/5

Image Courtesy of    http://www.taramcpherson.com

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