Jason E. Collinge

Avertis Burns (8.5 x 10 inches: Charcoal on Paper)

Avertis Burns depicts a scene from the nightmare of Little Ashta, a character from Jason's first novel, Highwick: The Mage-King and the Thief.  In the dream, Little Ashta's earlier encounter with a curiously engaging street-performing monkey transforms into a terrifying inferno.  The town of Avertis blazes against the night sky while demonic creatures called Youkai look on.  Even the innocence of the monkey is horrifyingly perverted into a horrifying creature.

Celtic Dragon (11 x 14 inches: Pen & Ink on Paper)

The Celtic Dragon rendering was originally begun as a tattoo design in the year 2000.  However, completion occurred after the date of the tattoo appointment.  Moreover, the final design worked more as a free standing art piece than as a tattoo.

In the upper half of this drawing, the viewer may observe the broken lines employed to render the unstable rainy weather that threatens the Irish coast during the dragon's flight.  Here, the sky is highly characteristic of Jason’s manner, the seemingly unkempt rapid execution like Johan Barthold Jongkind (1819-1891).  However, there is a free expression of emotion, not a technically stylized improvisation; along with his emotional response, he always strives to convey that which is most abiding in his visual impressions.  The belt and scabbard for his sword are similar to that used by the Knights of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem (Hospitallers) circa 1250 AD.  Also of note is the shading used on the castle in the background, which is meant to render the structure more three dimensionally realistic.  Shading was employed on the dragon, especially on the legs, to shape his muscles.  The dragon's Celtic harp was shaped and defined by a curved, broken line - as are the wings.  The decoration on the harp is made with wavy lines, while the harp's strings are rendered with straight, thin lines to emphasize the delicate nature of the melodies they produce as the well travelled dragon plucks and strums.

This image was drawn for Jason's first novel, Highwick: The Mage-King and the Thief.  In it, Geryon Asher, a reluctant mage, approaches the secluded ruins of the an orphanage run by the Pendsen monastic order.  It is a place from his childhood and early adulthood, to which he is returning, yet now it is only crumbling circles of fire-blasted stone.  Though he has come to this remote place in order to warn the order of an impending demon raid, he has arrived too late; the orphanage lays in ruins, and his purpose becomes one of rescue.  Are their any survivors?  What awaits his approach within the stone confines of the orphanage?

Lonely Doctor (14 x 17 inches: Acrylic Paint on Rag Paper)

Mystic Doorway (36 x 84 inches: Acrylic on Masonite)

Mystic Doorway was painted directly on an interior door.

Saika Enters Nobinne's Chamber Window (8.5 x 11 inches: Charcoal on Paper)

Drawn for Jason's first novel, Highwick: The Mage-King and the Thief, this image depicts the thief Saika Corbin, also known as The White Raven of Pannese, breaking into the ancestral home of the Nobinne family.  She has already opened the wooden shutters, and now braces herself in the frame as she attempts to open the inner bottle-glass windows. From the throwing knives, to Saika's hip pouch, to the reflections of the moonlight on the glass behind Saika, Jason places a lot of detail into this image.

Saika Enters the Nobinne Ancestral Home (8.5 x 11 inches: Charcoal on Paper)

Jason depicts Saika Corbin, a character from his first novel, Highwick: The Mage-King and the Thief, as she scales the protective wall of the Nobinne ancestral home.  She is breaking in to confront Emperor Nobinias.  What she discovers inside, however, is not what she expected.

Teapots (12 x 15.5 inches: Acrylic on Canvas)

When one mentions fantasy, names such as Tolkien, Le Guin, Hambly, Collinge, McCaffery, Anthony, Brooks, and Pratchett spring to mind, evoking images of knights, dragons, fairies, mages, epic battles, long journeys, and magic.  However, one tends to forget the definition of fantasy includes all sorts of surreal imaginings.  When one acknowledges the wider net the term fantasy casts, one inevitably gets names of artists like Salvador Dali (1904-1989), a Spanish surrealist artist, whose imaginative, dreamlike images pushed the boundaries of surrealism - arguably an art movement that encompasses the fantasy and sci-fi genres.  In "Teapots", Jason has attempted to capture some of the light whimsy of Dali by rendering a flight of teapots and transforming the mundane into the extraordinary and thereby evoke a questioning of the material world from its viewers.