Superbly surreal new show from narrative wizard David Jien

“The serpent no longer slumbers! He is awoken! Who shall deliver us from this affliction? Deep corruption has befallen our lands. Lo, Formosa has fallen, Shakran and his black words have immersed deep within our peoples. We have forgotten our ways and are divided, father against son, mother against daughter. The reptilian plague promises pleasure and power. We have lost many kin to its deception, they now fill the ranks of Shakran’s saurian swarm. Those fortunate enough to elude the intoxicating clutch have found refuge under a different regime. Pilgrims have flocked together from all corners of the land in search of a new Formosa, Exodus dawns.”

This is the preamble to David Jien’s latest show, Exodus, that’s currently running at Richard Heller Gallery in Santa Monica, California; the latest addition to David’s ongoing mystic saga that attempts to make sense of the real world through bizarre, beautiful fantasies.

His pencil-drawn narratives are primitive in their origins, focussing on battles between good and evil, darkness and light and the fallout from an ideological war. But his protagonists are lizard-men and purple eggs, giant ducks and badgers in hats, navigating their way through an anachronistic world. Go and see them!

David Jien: Exodus runs until 2 May at Richard Heller Gallery.