Snake Priestess Painting

I've been interested in myths about the conflict between aspects of human consciousness - primitive vs civilised, primal vs sophisticated, intuition vs reason. I've explored this in variations of the beauty and the beast myth - Babylon astride the scarlet coloured beast, Europa and her snow-white bull, Pasiphae and her half bull, half man, the Minotaur. Some of these legends have been inspired by the objects left behind by the first peoples of Crete - images of bull leapers, bulls, and the famous Snake Priestess statuettes exquisitely made from vitreous faience. I made this painting from a photo of one of the statuettes, intentionally painting it in a rough hewn style, then focussing on the delicately rendered, asymetric breasts, as was done in the original. I was struck by the way in which her 4000 year old costume formed a sort of bustier, implying the sexuality of these ancient islanders was no different from modern people. But I wondered what the snakes in her hands meant. I wondered her sexualised body meant empowerment, as it supposedly did for Inanna or Madonna, or if it meant entrapment, as it did for Munroe. These statuettes are accompanied by paintings of naked men, leaping over charging bulls. The female statuettes wear sacred knots under their breasts (barely represented in this painting), and the paintings of bull leapers show sacred knot motifs. Intriguing symbology we may never unravel, except in dream or meditation such as painting.

Painting:Oil on Wood

Original:One-of-a-kind Artwork

Size:8.5 W x 11.8 H x 0.7 D in

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