ARTISTS TALKING
Visual art exhibitions and events with a platform for critical writing
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David Hancock, The Shadow of Death, 2007, acrylic on canvas, 144x143cm.
“The series Charlotte Sometimes was created as a body of work of a fictionalised Victorian artist, drawn from research into my own ancestry, which takes its cue from a supposed correspondence from the late 19th century, between the artist and his muse. The story told is that of lost works re-enacted and the tragic depression and death/suicide of the artist’s fiancée and muse Charlotte, who becomes the central character in this body of work. Charlotte is as much a heroine of the Victorian era as she is a darkly melancholic contemporary figure. In The Shadow of Death I have drawn inspiration from Holman Hunt’s painting of the same name, in which Christ’s shadow foretells his own future. In stretching as she takes rest, the figure’s pose is mirrored by a gnarled tree and the cross upon her own grave in the foreground. “The painting is an exploration of the tragic yearning which is central to Romanticism and the Gothic novel – both inspirational to contemporary movements in fashion, music and art. The Pre-Raphaelites, of whose works form the primary inspiration for this series, are of renewed interest, in particular for their referencing of the...
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