Ragnarök

"Ragnarök"

acrylic on birch panel

8 x 10 inches oval, framed

2012

SOLD

Progress shots:

 This piece is for New York City's MF Gallery.  

The name of the show is "See You In Hell II", and the theme is the end of the world/apocalypse.

I'm not a believer in all this 2012 hype about the end of days, and didn't want to make a Mayan or Biblically themed piece, so I looked to Norse paganism for inspiration.

Ragnarök is the series of events which is commonly referred to as the end of the Gods, or "Twilight of the Gods", where a number of important figures meet their demise, there are cataclysmic natural disasters, and the world becomes submerged in water.  Afterwards, the world resurfaces, the remaining Gods reunite, and the world is repopulated by two human survivors.

I wanted to focus on the demise of Odin (the main God) in the jaws of the great wolf, Fenrir.

Fenrir is pictured here, with the large rune, Hagalaz (H) as his symbol, meaning wrath of nature, destructive, uncontrolled forces, loss of power and leading to completion.  Odin's skull sits defeated below, with his rune Ansuz ( the F-looking symbol) on it's forehead, symbolizing Odin himself.

The skull is flanked by monkshood, symbolizing "A deadly foe is near" and rue anemone, symbolizing beginning anew.

And here's the flyer for the show, which opens this Saturday!

Huginn and Muninn Atop the Oracle

I finished my latest painting...






"Huginn and Muninn Atop the Oracle"
11 x 14 inches, framed
acrylic on wood board
2011
NFS


And here's the progress shots again in order...









Like I wrote before, this painting depicts Huginn and Muninn, the two crows (I made them a two-headed crow here) from Norse mythology who fly around the world everyday and report the events to Odin, the chief god. I love learning about Norse mythology and have always been interested in crows, so when I found out about Huginn and Muninn I couldn't wait to do a painting about them. And, like I said in my previous post, the color scheme of the painting was inspired by Dimmu Borgir's video for their self-titled song, "Dimmu Borgir", which I love.

The imagery also contains tarot cards with the original design that I've had for a long time. They belonged to my parents and I always loved using them as a teenager. The crystal ball contains a goat skull, a symbol for Satanism, which I've also been reading about a lot lately.

It's so interesting (and unfortunate) how society sets up so many roadblocks against understanding Satanism for what it really is, which is not evil at all. Unless you consider believing in yourself and celebrating life instead of death to be evil. I for one, do not, and am enjoying reading The Satanic Bible by Anton LaVey. I was pleasantly surprised to find that many of the beliefs discussed within it are beliefs that I myself hold.

The flowers, narcissus, represent self interest (hence the name) in Victorian Flower Language and I felt that was rather appropriate with other Satanic symbols.