CRITIQUE

 "From the symbols painted with alderbark on reindeer hide by the Saami, to the Veves of the Voudon Loa, to the Goetic seals of Solomon, ancient and wild cultures have used symbolic substation in the form of drawings to connect archetypal stories to the subconscious of their people. These stories reveal aspects of our deepest selves and help us to understand our motivations and subsequent actions. Oshun tricks Oba into cutting off her own ear to gain attention from Shango in the myths of Santeria. The turbulent rapids of two meeting rivers symbolizing the rivalry between the two wives. The Chief Architect of Solomon's temple murdered by his own workers, burried under a sprig of acacia. The acacia representing the immortality of the soul.  In the Kalevala, the mother of Lemminkaien collects his scattered body parts from the river and, bringing them together with the help of a bee, harkens back to the older resurrection story of Isis, Osiris, and Set.

These stories are more Real than reality and more True than truth. We enjoy and preserve them because they touch something within us that we recognize, thats older than writing and cities. Who among us hasn't felt jealousy, scorn, loss or even rebirth from a difficult period in our lives with more awareness than we had before.  When we take actions we don't quite understand, but which seem perfect in retrospect, we are often embodying these archetypes, assuming the God Form. In some cultures the Shaman, Houngan, or Curandero assumes this God form in a more assertive clear way in the form of possession. These explorers of the spirit world go where the rest of us fear to tread, and bring back the stories that make up our world.

Using the symbolic substitution of comic book art and stories drawn from his own life, Delchi has done this for us in the modern world. The characters of David and Demetrius, the stories of the Noiduttu and the Emperess, the betrayals and deceptions provide us a new mythology blended with the old which we can connect with and use to help understand ourselves. The pain and loss, perseverance and triumph, are the God forms that Delchi, working in the difficult and solitary tradition of the Shaman, has brought back for us from places most of us are too scared to look."