Our Lady of the Crack House

Back in May when I was on my digging adventure in Belgium I made reference in a blog posting to the, um, unusual accommodations that were provided.  For the full tale, go HERE .  The place felt like a run down crack house, and in fact turns out to have been a pretty much abandoned building whose last use was as a film set for a TV series that was a sort of Belgian version of Breaking Bad.

The creepy visual motif hit you as soon as you stepped in the door:

I am very excited to have learned a bit more about our mystery woman, but first a short video from YouTube....I'm not sure why a German newspaper found our hovel interesting, they must have been doing a bigger piece on the project:

But getting back to that creepy mural.  

It is based on a picture called Tina that was painted in 1961.  The artist was a British man named Joseph Henry Lynch.  Now departed he was a mysterious figure about whom very little is known.  Various rumors - always interesting even when untrue - claimed he was a nun living in New Zealand or that he was in fact Mexican. He made a living painting a series of similar striking female images.  They seem to occupy a niche in the world of UK popular art that is roughly analogous to "Dogs Playing Poker". His work shows up in the background of assorted TV shows and movies.  Here for instance is a still from Stanley Kubrick's frightening 1971 post Apocalyptic masterpiece "A Clockwork Orange".

Ah my, good times.  Makes living in my very comfortable house back in the states seem just a little mundane.