ELISTE

Cover illustration for Illusion by Paula Volsky

Jun 20, 2025

A pretty young woman with disheveled white hair and tattered skirts emerges through a gate, delicately wrought in bronze and patterned with butterfly wings. One half hangs askew, falling off its hinges. On the wall next to Eliste, Posters with calls for revolution are pasted on plaster partially covering the uneven stones. Red diamonds are spray painted there. Opposite the doorway graffiti reading "DOWN WITH" cuts off at the right panel edge. A body lays face down in the snow covered street. A view through an alley reveals a raucous crowd gathered at an iron fence. Beyond, a pair of robed figures, executioners, stand on either side of stairs leading up to platform where the silhouette of a strange device rises, dark and menacing against the hazy gray city background. The shape of it suggests a figure, malevolent sentience, with white dotted eyes and the peak and fringe of a headdress suggesting the shape of a head while buttresses at each side could be arms. — ELISTE (1991), Acrylic on Watercolor Board - 28" x 38"

I'm used to being pigeonholed by my clients, who often hire me to paint only certain kinds of subjects. So I admit I was thrown when I started reading Paula Volsky's novel Illusion. I couldn't understand why Bantam had given me the book.

Tonal alternative concept for ILLUSION, acrylic on illustration board 9x14. A woman with white hair carries an odd metallic device through urban ruins. Political posters are tacked to the brick wall she passes. The outline of a diamond is spray painted there. Farther back on the panel left and behind a iron wrought fence is a platform complete with a hangman's noose and a intricate black sarcophagus. — Alternate preliminary concept for *Illusion*

Yet in almost no time I was enthralled. Here was a big novel, rich and full of living detail, that demanded the best effort I could manage. The story has so many twists and turns that it was an exceptional challenge to find an image to capture the feeling of the whole. As in past efforts, symbolism came to my rescue.

Tonal alternative concept for ILLUSION, acrylic on illustration board 9x14. A pretty young woman with white hair stands with her back to a brick wall. She is cropped above her eyes which are pressed shut. Her clothes are in tatters, ripped open to reveal her midsection in which a bloody diamond has been carved. The fingers on her gloves are worn through. She opens her hands and butterflies flutter outward and up. Next to her, political posters in foreign language are posted to the wall. Through the alley beyond, a platform rises behind an iron wrought fence in the distance. On it rises a black sarcophagus with pronounced upward spikes reminiscent of the tower of Orthanc. — Alternate preliminary concept for *Illusion*

Essentially, the book is about the changes the main character goes through. With metamorphosis as the key concept, I painted the gates in the shape of a butterfly. Then came the concept of the heroine passing from one life to another, as represented by the gate separating darkness from light, and the rest fell into place.

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