Description

Old Skin (Standard) by Mark Davies

Mark Davies – “I had a good long look at potential directions for this piece and identified key scenes and settings from the film, such as the cage, the cell, Buffalo Bills’ house etc. but opposed them for the concern that they just wouldn’t look right on someone’s living room wall. Anything else wouldn’t have been iconic enough to sit under the film title so I have chosen to focus on the Death Head Hawkmoth which is such a striking image and one that is clearly associated with the film, not just from the disturbing place that it is put by Bill but because it is dominating film posters and covers since the start.

For me, I have previously used moths and butterflies within both published and unpublished works as I love the transformation from one state to another and have always linked that to personal development that is linked to happiness and confidence. So, what I have done is tackle this piece by focusing on the killer Jame Gumb, Buffalo Bill. I have focused on the mind-set of the character and what is driving him to commit such horrific crimes in pursuit of his goals, clearly one messed up person but why? I am a firm believer that people aren’t born bad, something has to happen to take away the light and bring darkness in floods. This is clearly the case with Jame, abandoned by his mother — an alcoholic prostitute who misspelled “James” on his birth certificate — and then taken into foster care at two years old. The film’s screenplay implies that he had a traumatic childhood. In the movie, Lecter quotes “Billy was not born a criminal, but made one by years of systematic abuse.” His twisted pursuit to become a woman adds a fascinating layer to the plot and his character, killing obese women and using their skin to create a skin suit for him to wear is pretty extreme to say the least.

The Hawkmoth definitely symbolises Gumbs’ determination to see his gender transition become real, blocked by the authorities for being too unstable he has resorted to his own methods. Skin becomes his canvas and make up and blood his paint and the sewing machine his glue. In his eyes he does no wrong, its’ an art form, a procedure, the scene with him dancing to ‘Goodbye Horses’ (which I’ve had on loop for a large part of creating this piece) is testament to his portrayed innocence. “