JAWS by Florey.
Florey shows us one of the classic Jaws scenes, but from an out-to-sea approach, where the buzzing of the beach is drowned out by the deadly underwater calm of the approaching shark. What the artist delivers is a masterclass in poster narrative.
Jaws is a new officially licensed screen print edition by Florey, commissioned and released by Vice Press and Bottleneck Gallery.
There are ominous goings on in the waters around Amity Island, while summer vacationers blithely enjoy the sand and surf of the beachfront. Florey captures this memorable scene from the film with a perfect balance of light and dark—the top half of the illustration shows us blue skies and a strip of sand that is heavily populated with holiday makers, while below the waves we see the great bulk of the eponymous shark. In the middle-ground, splashing happily on his yellow lilo, is young Alex Kintner, soon to be a plume of blood.
Sorry, kid, but you don’t make it home.
It’s a great alternative view of this scene. There is a sloshing calm and purpose with which the shark moves in, whereas this moment in the film itself is all bustle and tension on the beach. In a few moments, the classic pull-shot of Brody will occur, just as reality bites in the shallows. If you look closely, there on the righthand side of the print you’ll find Brody, with Ellen Brody behind him—fidgety and unrelaxed, sensing the queasy moment that is about to occur.
Florey’s art for this poster really is fantastic, and we had a great time building it up in 9 layers. There were a couple of screen changes between the regular and variant edition, most notably in the red, where the subtle Jaws title of the regular makes way for the bloody and foreboding title of the grey variant. The variant colour-scheme feels strangely reminiscent of another Spielberg film—Schindler’s List—where at one point the scenes of chaos are poignantly punctuated by the presence of a young girl’s red coat. The coat is later seen discarded and in tatters, much like the yellow lilo of the Kintner boy, found eddying in the gentle surf.
Jaws was screen printed at White Duck in editions of around 200 regular & 100 variant. Both editions were 24”x36” and 9 colours, printed on 300gsm Gmund Bauhaus paper.
These prints SOLD OUT right away, but there’s every chance the artist will have AP’s for sale at some point.
