'Il Sangue' (The Blood) is a book of 50 new images by VACANT STATE (Marco Palumbo-Rodrigues) in his signature graphic style. The work is a mix of occult / punk / anti-authoritarian / fetishistic themes that follow on from his work is last year's 'La Peste' but this time presented in blood red rather than black. Although containing no narrative, the images flow from one page to the next for a seamless graphic journey.

Marco Palumbo-Rodrigues lives and works in London as a musician, artist, tattooer and educator. He founded Vacant State Publishing and co-founded both No Front Teeth Records and Glass Eye Records, continuously releasing recordings from a multitude of punk, post-punk, hardcore and synth bands for which he acts as art director and designer. He also fronts / has fronted several bands including The Gaggers, Saccharine Souvenirs, Crystallised Minds, Zanzara, Miscalculations, Vacuum, Sanguisuga, La Rabbia, Subtext, Cold Callers and Telegenic Pleasure. Additionally, he founded Backstabber badges and Scum Like It Don't accessories and makes up half of the Savage Communication art collective.

The book itself is an 200mm x 130mm sized hardcover. The interior pages are red and white printed graphics on matte stock.

Come forth and bear witness as the atramentous veil of Marco Palumbo-Rodrigues’ drawings from LA PESTE slips away to reveal IL SANGUE; his new scarlet tome containing carmine creatures from a ruby netherworld.

Here, new flesh quivers, glistens and throbs. Devilish hearts pump feverishly as red ghouls shriek.

Our cheeks are slapped red by vermillion imps as we slip through the bloodied pages of IL SANGUE in search of abjection.

Red tumbles forth as keenly as it does from the elevator at the Overlook Hotel.

To Goethe red was beauty. Red in his native German is ‘Rot’.

Rot is Beautiful.

IL SANGUE unifies the disparate, the outcast, the demon and the saint.