The Library Print

This painting is part of a series of dreamlike narrative paintings influenced by the artist's actual dreams, which explore the human sub-conscience & themes of the metaphysical. Each piece in the series is a cryptic, somewhat autobiographical self-portrait, that reveals a facet of self through symbolism, interiors, colour and the use of light and darkness, inspired by contemporary photography and film. The deer is a symbol of many things, the personification of virtues and a character of legends and myths.The stag in Christian culture is a symbol in Medieval imagery for Christ; its antlers break off and re-grow during the cycle of the animal's life span, representing regeneration as in Christ regenerating life as resurrectiion from the dead. Also, in certain Christian vernaculars in other cultures such as in various Native American tribes, the stag represents a messenger of one world or dimension to another. This painting was almost entitled "Messenger", as it represents a metaphor to a dream that became reality through a real event while visiting a children's bookstore in Rome (see also the painting "Gabriella's Puppets"). What happened in the Roman bookstore is evidence to the fact that the objects which were dreamt were in fact real. I site the deer particularly through Christian symbolism because I attribute the miracle to the paranormal & the spiritual; the event that could have only been made possible through God. The rest of the events in real life to follow are another story.