Blue Lotus

Large square painting of oil and Indian ink on treated paper drawings mounted on board.

Informed by the inversion of a life drawing to give the appearance of a half-bird, half-man creature with wings spread.
Inspired by traditional North American art, the Phoenix rising, and the pull of an Egyptian sun.

The last and largest piece completed for Blue Lotus, this painting is all about creation and downfall. It is meant to be read anti-clockwise from the eggs in the hand at the bottom of the composition, through self-realisation/corruption, deification and ego, before finishing with the tarot figures being taken to the next world by the dolphins.
Tangata manu (Bird-man) is the winner of a traditional competition by the inhabitants of Rapa Nui (Easter Island), where competitors would swim out to a nearby island to retrieve the first sooty tern’s eggs of the season. The winner was the first one back with the eggs in tact, who would be crowned bird-man. The figure in the painting is my version of the cult’s deity, Make-Make. In its hand is held a nest of eggs and a chick, a copy of a wood and ivory sculpture which was found in King Tutankhamun’s tomb.

One of the earliest paintings in the exhibition, in the formative stages of development of the half-man half-reptile creature which occurs and is refined later on.

Oil and ink on paper on board.

Oil and ink on paper and board

This painting’s protagonist, Poseidon, was widely credited with the creation of the horse, but Rhea claimed she first spat a foal into existence and fed it to Kronos to fool him into thinking he was eating one of her offspring. Poseidon’s claim of the invention of horse racing, however, is not disputed.

The first painting with more than one figure allowed me to develop the idea of interplay between two figures along with the contrasts of light and dark in their various guises.