"When the Tigers Came", 2014. Sold

The fighting figures are inspired by several paintings by Rubens, and represent the ways in which history turns into myth. History and mythology are sometimes indistinguishable, which can create a golden lining of creativity arising from terrible events. This painting explores the place of legend in the history of art and the  jumble of players that get swept up when we tell stories about our past. History is written by the victors, and while this has forged many a brutal campaign for national supremacy. It's not objective. However, we owe stories, and religions, and cultural idiosyncrasies as history gets mangled in the retelling, and there is something beautiful about those layers of subjectivity and the creativity they inspire.