I don’t set out to paint gruesome images yet somehow they keep popping up-in this case literally out of the cauldron. Since a boy, I have loved Macbeth, it is the only work by Shakespeare that I had memorized passages of, namely the incredible spells cast by the Weird Sisters. In re-reading the play many decades later I find myself still drawn to the witchy drama of the fourth act.
The apparitions the three bearded ones begrudgingly conjure up for brave Macbeth are particularly terrifying: an Armed Head , a Bloody Child and lastly a Child Crowned with a Tree in Hand. They call to mind armorial devices.
Given this inspiration I have attempted to depict, once again as spontaneously as possible, what I have just finished reading; a form of automatic drawing in conjunction with literature. Or as my dear friend Dr. Claire Barbetti might say, a studio practice incorporating ekphrastic traditions.
That said, it is a bit ghoulish.
Macbeth IV.i. 90-115
or
The Second Apparition
2015
acrylic on canvas
16 by 2o inches
I now need to go finish Richard III, but do not expect images of infanticide.
Until then,
be well,
Lg
Boondocks Babylon 