5/27/2014

New Painting and a gallery show

Hello all and happy summer!
I am going to be participating in a group show at One Shot gallery, located inside St. Marks comics here in NYC! The show is called "From Spawn to Saga: Image Comics at 22" and celebrates the books published by Image Comics. There will be an opening for the show on June 14th, I will be there! If you are in NYC swing by :)
So for my piece, I chose a comic I really really love, and is something a little different, Age of Bronze by Eric Shanower. I love this comic because its not only beautifully drawn, but the author really did his research and it is about as historically accurate as possible while still being really fun to read. Not to mention the clothing and hairstyles are really in line with art of the time. I suggest checking it out, you won't be disappointed.
The obvious choice for me would have been a pin up of Helen of Troy but I really enjoyed the story of young Achilles on Skyros. When Achilles was young, his mother Thetis had a vision that he was going to die in the Trojan war. To try to prevent this, she requested that King Lycomedes conceal him in his court amongst his twelve daughters. So young Achilles, the great warrior and Trojan war hero lived part of his life as a girl!
On a recent visit to the Metropolitan Museum of art I got inspired to base my work on the colors and motifs of ancient Greek Vases, since the comic seemed to take some inspiration from the vases too. I love the way this came out, and would love to do a little series of Greek Goddesses in this style. Being Greek, I have interested in Greek Mythology since I was a child, I have visited most of the major ancient Greek sites during summer trips to visit family, so doing something Greek felt great. For years and years I have had the idea of Goddesses in my head, even working out details with my classics expert sister, but didn't feel ready to work on it. Doing this painting pushed me to do something slightly different and now I feel ready!