Proteus (Jonah) Painting

This fairly large predominately blue painting of a nude boy in the sea depths is a confluence of a number of different inspirations that came from looking at a sea flower. I wanted to go into an undersea and moonlit world of blue, seashells, stillness and slow rhythmic ebbing and flowing. In terms of inspiration, I wasn't consciously working with mythologies but themes are reflected in the painting. One is the story of of Jonah and also the Greek mythological figure of Proteus since people call Proteus the God of "elusive sea change". Both Proteus and Jonah are reluctant prophets and personifications of the unconscious. Carl Jung said that Proteus had also something in common with the figure of Alchemy Mercurius. I also found that a song from Shakespeare's Tempest kept going through my mind as I was painting the picture, specifically the line "but doth suffer a sea change into something rich and strange" from the song "Full Fathom Five, Thy Father Lies". In terms of materials, it is obviously a water-based media (raw pigment with an acrylic binder) with the textures intended to imply calcification. I also used some silver leaf, sand and colloidal silver.

Painting:Acrylic on Canvas

Original:One-of-a-kind Artwork

Size:40 W x 40 H x 0.8 D in

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