Jag - Sonnet 54 Painting

A merging of two work series. Jag Popham is a contemporary dancer, recently working with DV8 in London. This painting was done as part of my Sleep series whilst he was working with Expressions Dance Company, here in Brisbane. I decided to repurpose a painting from my Shakespeare’s Sonnet 54 series that I was in the middle of working on, as the sonnet reflects on the nature of beauty and truth, as well as the transience of youthful beauty. I showed Jag the sonnet and he strongly related to it, so it was a perfect match! Many of the acrobats and dancers that I was painting for the sleep series at that time were beautiful young people, but their career can only last so many years, as it is so demanding on their bodies. By the time most of them are in their mid-thirties, they are certainly thinking about the next phase of their lives. Jag was 22 when this work was made, in peak fitness and just about to head off to London to an exciting new company. His intrinsic self is the personification of truth and integrity, and seems dynamic, even in his sleep. SONNET 54 O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem By that sweet ornament which truth doth give! The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem For that sweet odour which doth in it live. The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye As the perfumed tincture of the roses, Hang on such thorns and play as wantonly When summer’s breath their masked buds discloses: But, for their virtue only is their show, They live unwoo’d and unrespected fade, Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so; Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made: And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth, When that shall fade, my verse distills your truth. Shakespeare