Thomas Woodruff: Freak Parade

Railing against the uniform blandness of American society, for his exhibit “Freak Parade” at Marquette’s Haggerty Museum of Art, Thomas Woodruff, chair of the illustration and cartooning department at New York’s School of Visual Arts, has assembled a disquieting collection of pieces reminiscent of Ray Bradbury’s novel Something Wicked This Way Comes, or the feel of Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s 1995 film, The City of Lost Children. The mixed-media-on-paper pieces, depicting unusual characters such as Anatomy Boy and Poor Mr. P, each tell a story, many accompanied by a poem written by the artist, who has illustrated numerous periodicals and book jackets for such notable authors as Robertson Davies, Ann Tyler and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The exhibit runs through April 18.