For Ophelia, I decided that the transmutation would be major. In fact, I stepped out of my comfort zone in terms of my classic style, to create a modern scene loaded with symbolism. A woman has been harmed and has decided that death could be her liberation. The vines cover her body trapping her, they grow out of her wounds and her face has a lost look, a mask of herself. But under the water her spirit flows, she feels light and calm, she is herself again. In this work the reading of death can be seen as real or symbolic. It can refer to a physical death or a rebirth, where we free ourselves from the fears, the pain and the ties of a past to flow again, freer, with more self-esteem, and being who we are in front of the world.

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A permutation of Ophelia
Edition of

A permutation of Ophelia

Original cataloguing
ARTIST
Sir John Everett Millais
DaTe
1851-1852
Type of Art
Painting
Format
On canvas
Medium
Oil paint
Colour
DIMENSIONS
Support: 762 × 1118 mm, Frame: 1105 × 1458 × 145 mm
Distinguishing attributes
Location
Tate

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