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Cassandra Seven

By  Susan Banks 2024 - 2025

Susan Banks

Cassandra Seven reimagines a motif that represents the princess/priestess/clairvoyant Cassandra. The painting suggests both her temple in Troy but also the threshold in Mycenae that led to her fate. The work is playful, intentionally painterly and untidy suggesting old, unstable surfaces and images pilfered from ceramics. The colour in this painting refers to the purple of the inviolable tapestries of the palace of Mycenae. The colour of sacred fabrics was obtained from the Murex, a species of predatory sea-snail that also features in the border of the painting.

Note. Cassandra, a daughter of King Priam, was the prophetess who foretold the fall of Troy. She was given the gift of prophecy by Apollo but, as she rejected him, he cursed her so that nobody would believe her.

After the fall of Troy, she was taken as a concubine by Agamemnon and, with him, she was killed by his wife, Clytemnestra.

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Europa One

Eurydice Two

Gadfly Minus One

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