A Painting a Day for 30 Days – Day #7

Colossus

My daily painting for day number seven is inspired by a poem by Sylvia Plath called Colossus, here is the first stanza:

“I shall never get you put together entirely, 

Pieced, glued, and properly jointed. 

Mule-bray, pig-grunt and bawdy cackles

Proceed from your great lips.

It’s worse than a barnyard.”

This poem is said to refer the Colossus of Rhodes, a sculpture of the Greek Titan Helios erected by the city of Rhodes to symbolise its victory over the Cyprus leader at the time.  The statue later collapsed after an earthquake struck and the poem is centered around the ruins. Helios is a personification of the sun god and here I have depicted him as a fetus in his mothers belly. I have transferred the broken sculptural quality to the female body but I still wanted her to be looming and powerful looking, like the mother of a God.

It is thought to be about Sylvia Plath’s father, his memory and legacy. The poem is rich with complicated imagery and a myriad of interpretations can be found. Here is my interpretation in the form of a painting :

 

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