The Hearing Trumpet

Surreal and wonderfully strange, The Hearing Trumpet is an apocalyptic novel about a mysterious retirement home and the spirited ninety-two-year-old Marian, who is sent there by her impatient family. The novel by the remarkable surrealist Leonora Carrington (1917-2011) is an exhilarating journey filled with biting humour, absurd situations, and an extraordinary imagination.

When I began working on the cover, I knew there was no way I could make it look as though it had been painted by Leonora Carrington. Rather than trying to imitate her unmistakable style, I challenged myself to approach the book through my own artistic language. I went through many doubts in the process, but ultimately allowed myself to draw it as myself - to respond to Carrington’s strange and wonderful world without trying to reproduce it.

At the same time, I wanted the cover to preserve the atmosphere of the novel: its dreamlike quality, eccentricity, and sense of the uncanny. I chose oil on canvas as the medium, allowing the richness and physicality of the paint to carry that feeling.