art by rhea

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Preparatory Work

A few of the sketches, paintings and drawings that built up to my final series of five paintings inspired by Greek mythology. Check them out on my page!

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A Study in Hands

These two small paintings represent two different women from Greek mythology and the narrative choices they make as an exertion of power. The first depicts Persephone and the choice she makes to eat six pomegranate seeds and therefore remain in the Underworld for six months of the year as Queen. The second represents Medea and the aftermath of her crime, murdering her children as vengeance against her abusive husband. The set represents the different ways that feminine power can be explored, it does not always have to be on a large, dramatic scale and it does not always have to be delicate and subdued.

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The Return of Persephone

Persephone has so regularly been presented only as a supporting character in the narratives of others, either the wife or the daughter and rarely as a powerful character in her own right.

I wanted to paint her as a goddess capable of her own autonomy and strength, heralding the return of Spring as she returns from the Underworld, one of the only figures in Greek mythology capable of crossing this boundary. She brings new life with her, the torch symbolising both the reintroduction of light to the world and the certainty of her character as it is more often associated with her mother searching for her. The waterfall adds motion, showing the transition of the world and the extent of her influence.

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Medusa in Isolation

Medusa is one of the most famous female figures of Greek mythology, but she is often depicted as a monster. However, the earliest Homeric stories present her as the victim, cursed and murdered at the whims of Gods.

I wanted this painting to show a vulnerability that she is so regularly denied, a moment of rest before she is killed in her sleep by the typical hero of the story. Inspired by neoclassical paintings, the dramatic lighting and ominous setting demonstrate her human fragility. The circular canvas is inspired by the ancient tendency to use her to decorate shields, scaring enemies and protecting the soldier with the image of her.

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Medea Fleeing Corinth

Medea is the titular protagonist in the play by Euripides, and she has become a key figure in literary discussions of feminine violence as she murders her children in an act of revenge against her abusive husband.

In this painting, I wanted to portray a more complex character than she is often permitted to be, showing the fragility of her emotional state as she flees her home. The darkness within the archway behind her shows the darkness of the scene of her crime, alluded to by the blood on the steps beside her. Her white dress would normally be associated with purity, but it is stained with blood and shows the consequences of her actions.

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Drawing Week

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Torso in Metal from 'The Rock Drill' (1913-14), Jacob Epstein

This sculpture began as the larger 'Rock Drill', a celebration of futurism and the developing age of mechanisation. However, as the First World War took its toll on the world, people beginning to truly understand the negative impacts of war, the piece evolved into a second state. Epstein broke the piece down to leave just the simplified torso, the image of a soldier still recognisable but now representing his anti-war message.

'Torso in Metal' is undoubtedly connected to the modern tradition of the futuristic soldier, a menacing figure cast in bronze that is immediately recognisable as a representation of violence. However, by deconstructing it, Epstein deconstructed these concepts, choosing to reimagine his once glorious warrior as a vulnerable being without limbs or agency, trapped by its past role but no longer able to fulfil it. This take on conflict is an extremely bleak one, a once revolutionary soldier now another casualty of modern warfare. It is impossible not to draw connections from this piece to the men who were returning from the battlefield, permanently traumatised and often left disabled by the violence they had endured.

This reimagining of his work shows the thought processes that Epstein went through, the glorified image of the futuristic fighting machine created in 1913 going on to become the vulnerable and damaged soldier of 1914. There is something deeply melancholic about the work, the embryonic life form at the centre of the torso no longer seeming to be another developing soldier and instead becoming a fragile extension of his vulnerability, charting the artist's shift towards an anti-war sentiment.

photo : Tate Britain

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Triple Portrait of Charles II (2008), Kehinde Wiley

American portrait artist Kehinde Wiley is widely renowned in the art world for his sensitive depictions of black men and women, redefining traditional conventions of historical European portraiture. He uses these well established conventions within a modern context, presenting young people of colour in this way as an expression of empowerment, allowing them into the circles that they were historically excluded from.

Across the vast majority of his works, including this one, he places his focus on everyday people in his neighbourhoods, elevating them to the status that was so easily afforded to these historical figures. This painting is based on Van Dyck's portrait of Charles I, a triple depiction used to capture multiple angles of the sitter, used by Van Dyck to prepare for a sculpture, but used by Wiley to capture multiple dimensions of the same man. He creates a sense of more passive masculinity that both subverts the likely lives of his subjects and the historic expectations of men. Delicate colours and floral motifs are a common theme across many of his series, and it is what he has become most well known for, a purposeful contradiction to the pressures of hypermasculinity that society places on men. He also uses the floral pattern over the jackets, drawing a connection between the historic influences and the hypermodern subjects. Wiley's works centre on ideas of identity and the conflict between expectations and the individual sense of self. The subject here presents an image of confidence, looking out towards the viewer in every individual portrait, echoing the historic confidence of monarchs, secure in the belief of their divine right to rule.

In this painting, Wiley creates a very delicate and sensitive sense of his subject and the balance between the image of stereotypical masculinity that he presents and the more gentle background that surrounds him. His work is unashamedly bright and bold, drawing attention to figures and stories that have been neglected throughout art history.

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Venus of Willendorf ( ca. 25,000 BCE), Artist Unknown

The Venus of Willendorf is one of the most iconic images of the artworks of prewritten history, and has become an intrinsic part of body positive movements in contemporary society. The small scale carved sculpture is over 25,000 years old, and depicts a standard of beauty that is not often, if at all, recognised in modern culture: an unashamedly fat body. While there is no certainty regarding the original purpose of this sculptural piece, it is generally placed into the categories of religious imagery or decorative art. The most commonly accepted theory is that she represents early deification, a fertility goddess with her exaggerated breasts and hips being associated with strength in pregnancy and childbirth.

The sculpture is around six inches tall, a small size that has contributed to the theories of it being used originally as jewellery or in similar decorative ways. The shape of it allows it to sit nicely in the palm of the hand, demonstrating the importance it may have held regarding human connection as ideas of culture developed, as well as suggesting that it was designed to be carried and transported with these early nomads as they travelled. The approach to the female body is what is most remarkable about these early sculptures as they present it in a casual manner, not hiding or explicitly sexualising it as then became the norm during the Hellenistic movement.

The forms of her body are very unusual by modern standards, this aspect of feminine presentation not one that ever reaches mainstream culture. As such, she proves to be a very refreshing artistic image, a celebration of bodies that are judged harshly by today’s standards, and it is likely for that reason that it has become so linked to body positivity movements.

(photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

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Beer Street and Gin Lane (1751), William Hogarth

Britain in the mid eighteenth century had found itself in the grip of a severe national issue regarding the mass consumption of gin. An increase in the price of wheat had made the cost of beer sky rocket, and many, especially those in the poor areas of cities, turned to gin. Satirist William Hogarth was, at this time, already well established as a voice of moral education, using his artworks to spread messages of the depravity that he perceived in London, and the same is true of his approach to the Gin Craze.

He created a pair of engravings, entitled 'Beer Street and Gin Lane', championing the consumption of beer and vilifying the drinkers of gin. The inhabitants of Beer Street exude bonhomie, with easy access to large amounts of food and drink, representative of success and wealth. The businesses are thriving, with the stark exception of the pawnbrokers, in direct contrast to the prosperous broker and undertaker in Gin Lane, made rich by the struggles of others.

The central figure of Gin Lane is a woman dropping her baby to take a pinch of snuff, the concept of the mother failing because of her vice a consistent theme in Hogarth's work. This reveals a lot about both his perception of women and of the lower classes, these engravings very clear in their negative presentations of both. Gin Lane is overwhelmed with depictions of violence and suffering, brawls breaking out in front of the distillery, a man sharing the same bone as a dog, and the none too subtle coffin hanging centrally above the action.

Hogarth deliberately made his works cheap in order for them to be accessible to these communities, relying on imagery in an age of extremely low literacy rates. This pair of works is a very apparent attack on the issues of addiction that ravaged the disadvantaged, representing the view of the upper classes who, like the people in Beer Street, were mostly unaware of the problems.

photos : RA collection

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Abstract face

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The British Library (2014), Yinka Shonibare

Yinka Shonibare is an established voice in discourses on identity and immigration, his works often exploring his own, self described 'postcolonial hybrid' relationship with his cultural identity. This particular piece is an installation of 6,328 books, covered in Dutch Wax print.

The spines of 2,700 of the books have printed, in gold, the names of first and second generation immigrants to Britain, as well as a small number of infamous immigration opposers, including Nigel Farage. The piece serves as a celebration of immigrants and immigration, placing them on an even level with the classic libraries that are a common sight in British academic circles and therefore giving highbrow value to their lived experiences. The work also contains a study space with tablets linked to the website representing the piece, allowing viewers to interact with the individual stories of those named. Shonibare aims to provoke discussion and reflection of British culture and notions of identity, ensuring that these stories are considered as valid to the British identity as those from non-immigrants.

Shonibare also makes the interesting and initially jarring choice to include the names of those in vocal opposition to immigration, recognising the contemporaneity of the conversation and the nuances within it. This is repeated through the use of the Dutch Wax print, a common fixture in his works, simultaneously a symbol of cultural heritage and colonialism, drawing this conversation to the forefront of his pieces and once again exploring the fragility of the concept of fixed identity.

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Miniature eye painting

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Ron Mueck Exhibition Review

Artist Ron Mueck manipulates scale in his hyper realistic sculptures to suggest a powerful sense of inner life and intense emotions. This exhibition in the Thaddaeus Ropac Gallery, London spans works from Mueck's oeuvre across several decades, and a narrative about life and the human condition is created through their presentation. The nine pieces chart the human experience, from birth to death, exploring the emotions in the brief time between.

'Dead Dad' is one of Mueck's earliest works and was instrumental in the formation of his career and international reputation. The piece is incredibly emotive, a half size depiction of his father laid out in a room as though in a morgue. It coexists in the camps of lifelike and lifeless, detailed to the point of extreme realism and more effective for the pallor that so accurately presents ideas of death. The room in which it is displayed adds to the emotive tone, a blank, empty space that seems reminiscent of a morgue. Because the piece is displayed on the floor, the effect is very vulnerable, forcing the viewer to look down on the small figure and therefore have an inherent sense of power over it. It creates a sense of isolation and vulnerability, a consistent theme in Mueck's work.

Mueck has a clear skill in noticing and depicting details, both physical and psychological, and his works feel as much as insight into the emotions of an individual as it does a depiction of their physical form. His works often explore subtle demonstrations of vivid emotions, mainly focussing on defencelessness and loss, eliciting emotive engagement over the nuances of humanity. The consistent distortions of scale ensure that his works are always unfamiliar to the viewer and highlight ideas of how we, as people, occupy a space and connect with each other. His pieces are highly emotive and strike to the core of the human experience and are very easy to connect with despite their unnatural scale.

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miniature self portrait

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Comparison of Caravaggio's 'Judith Beheading Holofernes' (1599) and Kehinde Wiley's 'Judith and Holofernes' (2012)

The biblical story of Judith and Holofernes has been a source of inspiration for artists since the sixteenth century. Caravaggio's work is one of the most famous in this theme, and represents both classically Renaissance styles and also ideals. Wiley's interpretation represents the modern alternatives, working from the same simple base but creating a vastly different response.

Both are classified as historical works, but the contrasting social climates in which they were created lead to a significant disparity between the final results. Caravaggio adheres to the classical motifs that he pioneered, the use of chiaroscuro creating a high contrast and resulting in a dark scene with all focus on the central act. He places all focus on the climax of the story, validating Judith's violence and dressing her in white to reinforce her enduring purity.

In contrast, Wiley creates a powerful and imposing figure, dominating the space and casting the head of Holofernes aside, minimising his importance whereas Caravaggio centralises him. Wiley's Judith benefits from the contemporary power afforded to women, the series that this painting originates from focussing entirely on recreating historical works in a way that centralises African-American women, affording them the power that history has continuously denied them.

Wiley uses the historical genre to give his figures power, redefining the pre-existing motifs that Caravaggio created and perpetuated, demonstrating the progression of social considerations of the presentation of women and the historical genre as a whole.

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Queen Bee