Jocasta Four
By
Susan Banks
2025
Susan Banks
- Painting
- Spiritual & Philosophical
- Social & Political
- Abstract & Conceptual
- Greek Mythology
- Feminist Reimagining
- Pattern
- Colour Development
- Motifs
Dimensions
50 x 50 x 3.5
The colours in this painting reference the Bronze Age “Aegean Dyes” which gave rich yellows, purples and madders found in fragments of frescos which depict crocuses as fabric decoration. This is a painting about paint manipulation and process as well as an abstract response to a story. Asymmetry and inconsistencies are intentional.
The central motif, developed from pattern on ancient Greek ceramics, represents Jocasta, an essential figure in the Greek tragedies that surround the Oedipus myths. When there is neither history nor a definitive version of a story then the imagination can spin imprecise impressions, evoking happenings in a bronze age palace and suggestions of mysterious beliefs and rituals.
Bib. Three Theban Plays by Sophocles, circa 450 BCE, and Children of Jocasta by Natalie Haynes, 2017.
"Aegean Dyes." Expedition Magazine 58, no. 3 (January, 2017): https://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/aegean-dyes/
Oil and acrylic on deep canvas
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