Dido

This painting was created for two main reasons: 1.) As part of an upcoming, collaborative exhibition in Stoke-Newington, London (details of which I will post on my next blog), 2.) A portfolio/promotional piece.

It's a direct contrast to my John Lee Hooker piece in many ways, which was a nice switch, and a good challenge.
Dido is one of many characters from Virgil's "Aeneid", and from the pantheon of Roman mythology. She is the Queen of Carthage when Aeneas, the famous Trojan-Roman hero, is fated to meet her. They fall deeply in love. When, in obedience to the commands of the gods, he leaves her to continue his journey, she burns herself to death on a funeral pyre in despair. The ships sailing away were a late edition to the composition, but I think an important one in terms of its added narrative quality. Its a bit of a shame I didn't get the sea as I wanted, as I had imagined it being much more luminously blue-green, with a real sense of depth to it...