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4.0 

Grim Portraits: Six Stories About the Dark Side of Art

By Kealan Patrick Burke
Grim Portraits: Six Stories About the Dark Side of Art by Kealan Patrick Burke digital book - Fable

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Publisher Description

What do you see when you look at a painting? The image, the brush strokes, the stippled canvas beneath? What if you looked beyond it? And what do you know about the person who created that picture that's hanging on your wall? They say art requires a certain acceptable degree of madness. What secrets then lie beyond the pigment in the darkness between depiction and delusion?

Herein you'll find stories about self-destructive lovers on a quest to find themselves while getting lost in each other ("Sometimes They See Me"), meet a man who wakes to find himself bound to a chair in a gallery of nightmarish paintings ("The Binding"), discover how one horrific act converts a child's grief into artistic talent in "The Portrait", witness the unveiling of an art collector's most precious and macabre find in "The Acquisition", visit a comic book store with a pair of thieves intent on robbing a man they don't know is expecting them ("The Barbed Lady Wants for Nothing"), and read a roadie's account of a band's final days after they discover "The Amp."

Inspired by Rod Serling's NIGHT GALLERY, GRIM PORTRAITS features six stories of art, madness, and horror by Bram Stoker Award-winning author Kealan Patrick Burke.

Browse at your peril.

12 Reviews

4.0
“This author has become a regular during my October TBR for spooky season, and I’m glad I grabbed a paperback to read. Six short stories all featuring art in some way. ‘Sometimes They See Me,’ the opening story and possibly more of a novelette+, explores what parts of each of us are art itself and where we bleed together. Two self destructive lovers meet on the night they planned to take their lives. Instead, they continue on, intertwined in their reckless abandon, taking in art as if it’s its own mix of drugs. My favorite short of the collection, ‘The Binding,’ finds a man waking up while bound to a chair. He’s trapped within an art gallery, all the art featuring tortures. This felt almost like the opening of a Saw trap, with the character coming to and having no idea how they got there, but being completely immobile. It starts with disbelief, the man figuring it’s a joke, a prank, or some kind of mistake. But it’s not, and the reveal honestly made me want to write something of my own! Another of particular enjoyment features a couple thieves intent on robbing a comic book store. While inside, one of the thieves finds a comic seemingly depicting their exact robbery. And while he stands still with the comic, his accomplice is still moving, urging the comic panels on in ‘The Barbed Lady Wants for Nothing.’ The final short, ‘The Amp,’ felt like the otherworldly feels of the band from Jennifer’s Body, but instead of demons, the entity is the musicians amplifier! It plays music that doesn’t match what the guitarist plays, it plays even when stringless, and it’s bringing about something unstoppable. Another quick, enjoyable, and unique read.”
“This is a collection of short horror stories related to art. There are some really cool, unique ideas explored in these! Some of the stories I just wanted more exploration from. The opening story “Sometimes They See Me” and “Portrait” were my favorites in this collection. Would like to read more from this author in the future, for sure. He writes very effective short form horror.”
“This book is nothing less than a completely wild ride. Every story is so unexpected and so unusual, each in their own way. What a crazy ride.”

About Kealan Patrick Burke

Born and raised in a small harbor town in the south of Ireland, Kealan Patrick Burke knew from a very early age that he was going to be a horror writer. The combination of an ancient locale, a horror-loving mother, and a family full of storytellers, made it inevitable that he would end up telling stories for a living. Since those formative years, he has written five novels, over a hundred short stories, six collections, and edited four acclaimed anthologies. In 2004, he was honored with the Bram Stoker Award for his novella The Turtle Boy.

Kealan has worked as a waiter, a drama teacher, a mapmaker, a security guard, an assembly-line worker at Apple Computers, a salesman (for a day), a bartender, landscape gardener, vocalist in a grunge band, curriculum content editor, fiction editor at Gothic.net, and, most recently, a fraud investigator.

When not writing, Kealan designs book covers  through his company Elderlemon Design.

A movie based on his short story "Peekers" is currently in development as a major motion picture.

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