01 / History
Semiramis and Ninyas
Queen of Assyria, builder of cities and empires — wife, widow and incestuous mother — whose rise, by valour in some accounts and by treachery in others, ends with her seizing the throne.
Mixed media on UV print
Series 01 · 2022
Iconic
Legendary, folkloric, mythical and historical figures staged through beauty, power and transgression.
History · Mythology · Folklore
Enter the seriesSemiramis and Ninyas · Detail
2022
Iconic I is the first chapter of a large fresco featuring legendary, folkloric, mythical and historical characters who have left a mark on history and on the collective imagination. The themes are woven around unhealthy passions, transgressed taboos, rape, murder, incest, regicide, matricide, infanticide, fratricide and parricide. The artist tries to capture the magnificence of monstrosity — a XXth–XXIst century trend in which transgressive figures, beyond good and evil in the nietzschean sense, are glamorized, looked upon, and put on a pedestal. The result of in-depth research in mythology, history, politics, folklore, literature and anthropology, the series was built from photographs taken in Lebanon and France, then transformed through digital painting and compositing, printed as a single artwork using ultraviolet light before being reworked using traditional fine-art techniques.
01 / Iconic
History
Eight works · power, lineage and the throne
02 / History
Agrippina and Nero
Agrippina turns her sexual aggression toward her own son Nero in a bid to keep power; Nero has her murdered, and she reportedly bids her killer strike the womb that bore him.
Mixed media on UV print
03 / History
Messalina and Britannicus
Claudius' young wife Messalina, cast by the sources as a scheming nymphomaniac, and her son Britannicus — the heir later poisoned on Nero's orders.
Mixed media on UV print
04 / History
Constantine I and Crispus
The first Roman emperor to profess Christianity and his son Crispus, executed by his father on a charge later found to be false.
Mixed media on UV print
05 / History
Rodrigo and Lucrezia Borgia
Pope Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia) and his daughter Lucrezia, whose family name became a byword for corruption, poison and intrigue in the Renaissance papacy.
Mixed media on UV print
06 / History
Al-Khayzuran
A slave who became wife of Caliph Al-Mahdi and mother of two caliphs, ruling in all but name — and rumoured to have had her own son suffocated when he crossed her.
Mixed media on UV print
07 / History
Sitt al Mulk and Al Hakim
The Fatimid princess who took the reins of government from her brother Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah and is said to have plotted his death.
Mixed media on UV print
08 / History
Shajara al-Durr and Izz ad-Din Aybak
The slave who became Sultana of Egypt, ran the state through war and, when her husband Aybak sought to replace her, plotted his murder — and was beaten to death in turn.
Mixed media on UV print02 / Iconic
Mythology
Five works · gods, curses and kinship broken
01 / Mythology
Seth and Horus
From the Contendings of Horus and Seth: the fratricidal god Seth and his nephew Horus contend for the throne of Egypt through violence and seduction.
Mixed media on UV print
02 / Mythology
Tantalus and Pelops
Tantalus, testing the gods' omniscience, serves them his own son Pelops at a feast; the boy is restored to life and Tantalus is condemned to eternal torment.
Mixed media on UV print
03 / Mythology
Procne and Itys
Avenging her sister Philomela, Procne kills her son Itys and serves him to his father Tereus.
Mixed media on UV print
04 / Mythology
Phaedra and Hippolytus
Struck by Aphrodite's curse, Phaedra falls for her stepson Hippolytus; rejected, she accuses him falsely and he is destroyed by his father's curse.
Mixed media on UV print
05 / Mythology
Jocasta and Oedipus
Jocasta and the son she abandoned, Oedipus, who unknowingly kills his father and marries his mother — ending in her suicide and his self-blinding.
Mixed media on UV print03 / Iconic
Folklore
Three works · witches, spirits and the night road
01 / Folklore
Baba Yaga
The witch of Slavic folklore who lives by her own rules in a forest hut — helper, captor and devourer alike — increasingly read as a figure of feminine power and the trickster archetype.
UV digital print and mixed media
02 / Folklore
Kuchisake-onna
The 'slit-mouthed woman' of Japanese folklore, a vengeful spirit mutilated by a jealous husband who stalks passers-by with her scissors.
Mixed media on UV print
03 / Folklore
La Llorona
The 'Weeping Woman' of Mexico and the Southwest who drowned her children and, denied the afterlife, wanders the rivers forever searching for them.
Mixed media on UV printCuratorial viewing
Full works and high-resolution details are available for professional and curatorial enquiries.