Artist talk and reading with Val Sivilli

We are thrilled to host the artist, illustrator, and author of The Wild Boar Val Sivilli

Join us for an inspiring evening, on Friday, April 14th at 5 pm!

“I am fairly certain there is an animal living inside of me. I don’t mean this metaphorically, I mean this actually. There is a real wild animal living inside of me.” 

(From The Wild Boar, a grown-up tale about the beast within. written, illustrated, and often well tolerated by Val Sivilli)

A little about Val

My work is fueled by my passion for color, narrative, and physical expression. I love a good story and often incorporate text into my paintings. As an Adjunct Professor of Visual Arts, I teach college-level courses at various institutions. Originally, from Brooklyn, Long Island, and then Brooklyn again, I now live in Hunterdon County, New Jersey. The Delaware River is never far from my site. Often, I can be found playing my accordion somewhere.

About the Wild Boar

Having completed a one-page, double-spaced, 14-point tiny story about a hairy, murky, somewhat unknowable beast that possibly lives inside of me, I traveled to Taos, New Mexico for a 3-month artist residency in the Spring of 2015 with the intention of illustrating the Beast story with a series of large paintings. I was bound and determined to locate the responsible party for any and all of my most dark and intolerable behavior. I was on a mission to define that source, to identify it, make it big, and colorful, and possibly snuff it out or maybe just yell at it for a little while. The Wild Boar found its way into ALL of the paintings created at that residency – all 57 of them - without tolerating having any of the original story inserted into them at all. The tusks, the bristly hair, the stocky body, and the snout seemed satisfied just to be paintings.

Yet the Beast was insistent. It wanted to have its story told. So that’s how these graphic novels were born. Three different Wild Beast stories are told through 5 books. They are funny, dark, ironic, gutsy, and brutally honest. The Beast narrates its story through the voice of its host body. This Beast takes the form of a suckling pig, an operatic diva, a college coed, passed out drunk, and a pubescent young girl to name just a few, and all completely out of control.