Europa (elope, white hart) Painting

June 2017. I’m working on representations of girl/woman and bull. I painted the scarlet coloured beast, Fearless Child and Europa in quick succession. The image is archetypal, multilayered and ambiguous. Archetypes are of fundamental importance to politics. Such imagery can express ideas and trigger subconscious fears and desires – especially effective across language barriers. The Europa myth symbolises the hopes and fears of European Union. Does the young woman represent European nations first seduced, then carried away, and finally raped by a god in disguise (the ancient Greek Europa myth)? Is the beast a dreadful, fascist superstate? Or is this a love affair, with passionate hearts and self interest subsumed, as the lovers elope into a bright new dawn? Making the painting also brought to mind the English myth of the White Hart, a mythic, magical beast which can never be caught, try as you might. And, needless to say, the elusive ideal of European unity.