A surreal gallery of drawings without origin, logic, or resolution
Where do the strange drawings in this equally strange book come from? Some claim they were made by a certain Prody Pierce, working from notebooks and sketches found inside a mysterious trunk. Others propose a fantastical case of plagiarism between two rival artists. A third rumor holds that the images were designed as interpretive tools for eccentric psychologists. None of these accounts can be verified. None are dismissed.
Like an artefact unearthed from a vanished civilization, Les Assises de l'Imposture keeps its secrets intact. The language that runs through its pages has no known speakers. The figures remain anonymous. The scenes resist explanation. In a register that recalls Magritte, Topor, and Bill Plympton, Rita Mercedes constructs a hazy, liminal world where bodies distort, logic dissolves, and the line between authorship and fiction grows deliberately thin. Published by Éditions Cornélius in October 2023, this French-language hardcover belongs to the tradition of Artbooks & Artist Publications that resist easy categorization.
Condition note: The protective film has been removed, but the book is in perfect, like-new condition.
About the author
Rita Mercedes is a French visual artist working at the intersection of surrealism, speculative fiction, and symbolism. Her meticulously drawn compositions blend psychological strangeness with visual poetry. She trained in architecture in Paris before turning her geometric sensibility toward illustration. Her first collection of paranormal drawings was published by Jean-Pierre Faur éditeur; seventeen years later she produced an aquatic comic populated by abyssal creatures, published by L'Association. Whether Rita Mercedes is an author or a fictional character remains, characteristically, an open question.
