II- Kim Poor: diaphanism

A Brazilian artist living in London, Kim Poor invented a technique of painting containing glass beads melted on steel. Salvatore Dali, who met Kim Poor in 1974, was impressed by her ghostly style, which he described as ‘diaphanism.’ In the world of progressive rock, it was first seen in 1976 on the album cover of ‘Voyage Of The Acolyte,’ the first solo album by GENESIS guitarist Steve Hackett. (Ms. Poor is Mr. Hackett’s wife.) A superb watercolour, it was elected Album Cover of the Year in 1976, and the original artwork displayed at the Thumb Gallery in London in 1979.

‘Voyage Of The Acolyte’ represents a gifted priestess, blind of premonition, crossing what could be the door of knowledge, leaving in the past a fixed medieval world. This allegory - with its pastel colors, winter environment and evanescence - invokes the Gothic and ethereal musical world of Steve Hackett, and expresses that world better than words might. In addition to other album covers for her husband, Ms. Poor has applied the diaphanism technique to books, lithographs, enamelled gouaches, and paintings, as well as providing magical illustrations for the lyrics of GENESIS (‘Genesis Lyrics,’ Sidgwick & Jackson, 1979 London).

Affinities between these two worlds – the musical and the artistic - had already been established with GENESIS when the group recorded two songs – ‘Entangled’ ('A Trick Of The Tail', 1976) and ‘Blood On The Rooftops’ ('Wind And Wuthering', 1977) - inspired by the imagery of Hipgnosis artist, Colin Elgie.